mumbai jj hospital in byculla the only staterun centre in mumbai and one of the six in maharashtra administering covaxin is faced with a strange predicament even as it struggles to convince its own employees to take the vaccine over a dozen private practitioners have approached the hospital for covaxin in the last one weekthe average daily turnout in covaxin centres has remained under 40 across the state while that for covishield has crossed 70on monday a general practitioner from bandra walked into the bycullabased hospital demanding a covaxin shot he was turned away for lack of clarity on whether nonjj employees can be administered covaxin the agitated doctor cited the new norms which allowed doctors to walk into any centre civic officials however told toi that the walkin relaxation only applied to the nine civicrun medical centres where covishield was administereddr lalit sankhe nodal officer at jj confirmed that they have received over a dozen calls from outsiders wanting to take covaxin this vaccine may be under trial but it uses an inactivated virus this is a timetested technology and there appears to be faith in this he said in the light of so many queries and the walkin on monday dr sankhe said he called officials to check if outsiders could be given covaxin i have been told there is no directive from the centre he said but dr archana patil head of directorate of health services told toi if they are preregistered they can receivethe dilemma cuts both ways an increasing number of jj staffers want to know if they can take covishield by visiting bmcrun centres the walkin rule seems to have given them an impression that they can take vaccines from the covishield centres but we dont know that either i will be inquiring from the bmc ward office said dean dr ranjit mankeshwar merely 145 healthcare workers from jj have taken covaxin out of the over 3000 registered on monday 34 took the vaccinea secondyear student of bsc nursing who took the vaccine on monday said she and a friend were the first ones from her batch to be called for vaccination our dean and matron have taken it so i consider it safe she said covaxin developed received an approval for emergency use before completing phaseiii trials gynaecologist dr sudhir naik said he and his paediatrician wife were keen on taking covaxin and have approached jj i am convinced with the safety and immunogenicity studies from phase i and ii i believe could protect against the newer strains too he said