Gurugram receives 39K additional doses of Covid-19 vaccine

Over 39,000 additional doses of Covishield — one of the two Covid-19 vaccines approved for emergency use — have been allocated for Gurugram to be given to the front-line healthcare workers as the second dose 28 days after their first vaccine shot, said district health department officials on Thursday.

Despite the reluctance among the healthcare workers regarding the vaccine that has led to vaccine wastage of almost 10% in the state, the district health department has been focusing on utilising the available doses by increasing the daily turnout.

The state on Tuesday received a stock of 214,000 doses of Covishield vaccine. “As many as 38,980 doses will arrive in Gurugram on Friday. The stock includes almost 1,500 doses for healthcare workers commissioned by the Central government and 37,480 doses for the state healthcare workers,” said

Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, said.

Three vaccination drives have been held so far in Gurugram since the launch on January 16 and over 7,500 health care workers have been covered. In the previous drives, the turnout has been almost 60% in district, which increased to 80% on Thursday. Senior state officials said that due to hesitancy among healthcare workers, several vaccine vials have been wasted. According to them, a vial once opened has to be used in five hours. A single vial of Covishield has 10 doses, while Covaxin has 20.

“The open-vial concept is not applicable for Covid-19 vaccine, in which the remaining doses can be used later,” said Dr Virender Ahlawat, state immunisation officer. “The vaccine wastage is almost 10% presently. Wastage is mostly reported in the last hours of the vaccination. If a vial is opened and not many people turn up, then the doses get wasted. Therefore, in districts with lower turnout, limited vials are being used. Only two to three cases of vials breakage before or during the inoculation have been reported so far.”

A few officials privy to the matter, however, said that the vaccine wastage is higher than 10%. “The vaccine wastage could have been avoided if front-line workers like police and urban civic body workers were included along with the health staff. Currently, due to lower footfall of health workers, many police personnel are also getting skeptical,” said a senior official of the Gurugram Police.