E-Paper
Punjab runs out of vaccine stock
Only few doses left for administering the first jab; state not likely to get fresh supply from Centre for next 4-5 days, say officials
A few days after inoculating a record 6 lakh people in a day, Punjab has run out of vaccine doses with only a few left for administering the first jab.
Only 25,000 shots were administered on Monday due to the shortage and the state is likely to remain out of stock for another 4-5 days as the health department may not get more doses from the Centre before July 9.
“Around 1 lakh doses of Covishield are expected on July 9. It may get delayed till July 11 as was communicated by the Centre,” a senior health department official involved in the inoculation drive said.
Punjab Covid-19 nodal officer Dr Rajesh Bhaskar said the state will not be able to run the vaccination drive for next few days as they are out of stock now. “We don’t have the stock to administer the second dose,” he said.
On July 3, the state administered over 6 lakh jabs in a day having received 6.75 lakh doses two days before.
A senior government official said the strategy behind consuming maximum doses in a day was aimed at conveying to the Centre that the state has the capacity to administer such a large number of jabs and that it was not being given adequate doses.
State health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said the Centre’s distribution strategy for the opposition-ruled states like Punjab is completely biased.
“Earlier, the Centre was accusing us of not administering enough jabs. Now, when we have shown our capacity by vaccinating 6 lakh people in a day, they are not providing us more shots,” said Sidhu.
