Midnight vigils, snaking queues as some Indians await COVID vaccines

People stand in a queue to receive a dose of COVISHIELD vaccine, manufactured by Serum Institute of India, outside a vaccination centre in Siliguri in the eastern state of West Bengal, India, October 7, 2021. Picture taken on October 7, 2021. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

SILIGURI, India (Reuters) - Residents of a city in northeast India are spending nights in snaking queues outside vaccination centres awaiting their turn for a COVID-19 shot, an anomaly in a country with a surplus of vaccines.

In Siliguri, a city in West Bengal state close to India's border with Bangladesh, local police sometimes have to be brought in to control unruly crowds of people gathered outside vaccination centres.