Maharashtra’s worry: How to get 110 million vaccine doses for all?

With 57.1 million people from the 18-44 age group added to the existing list of 33.8 million Covid vaccine beneficiaries, the biggest worry for the state government is procuring the stock to put the drive on fast track.

With 57.1 million people from the 18-44 age group added to the existing list of 33.8 million Covid vaccine beneficiaries, the biggest worry for the state government is procuring the stock to put the drive on fast track.

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The state will need more than 110 million vaccine doses for inoculation of the age group, the onus of procurement of which is on the government. The authorities, after tapping the possibilities of procurement from two vaccine manufacturing companies, are apprehensive about the availability of doses. The state authorities are also wary about the high rates ascertained for the vaccines.

“During our meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, we have demanded One Nation One Rate of the vaccine, so we could easily implement the vaccination drive aggressively. Not only Maharashtra, most chief ministers who attended the video conference have demanded this. The state has its own financial constraints, although we will bear the cost of inoculation for the poor. The reduction in rates will help us vaccinate more people for free, otherwise we will have to restrict free inoculation to the poor. In that case, we will try and rope in corporate houses and private sector,” said state health minister Rajesh Tope.

Tope said in the absence of availability of stock, the state may not be able to achieve its target of aggressive inoculation. “The Serum Institute of India has expressed inability to supply the stock until May 24. We have been talking to Bharat Biotech. The decision over implementation of the third phase of inoculation and free vaccination for the poor based on the financial burden will be taken in the cabinet meeting,” he said.

Congress leader and public works department minister Ashok Chavan has demanded the same rate of vaccine for states and Centre. He said that if the states are forced to buy the vaccines at ₹400 a dose, the burden on the state exchequer will be more than ₹4,000 crore.

According to the officials from the public health department, the decision over the cover of free vaccination will depend on the rates finalised after discussions with manufacturers. “Covishield will cost ₹400 a dose, if the negotiations fail, but the rates for Covaxin are not known as yet. Similarly, we will have to check the burden of imported doses too. If the Centre does not help us on negotiation of rates, we will have to cover a limited number of families in low-income groups. The cabinet will take a call on whether to cover only 2.5 million families in Antyoday scheme under the National Food Security Act for free vaccination or extend it to more families. In that scenario, we will rope in private sector to a large extent to reduce the burden, but it will hamper our target of aggressive vaccination,” the official said.

The official said the state expects the Centre to bear the cost of inoculation of all above 45 years and health care as well as frontline workers from all age groups.

Tope said the Maharashtra government has already demanded permission from the Centre for import of vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Sputnik to tide over the shortage of the ones in domestic markets. According to officials, the import of the vaccines may take a few more months as manufacturers have orders lined up from other countries.

Maharashtra has been facing a shortage of the vaccines, hindering its aim of inoculating more than 600,000 people every day. Amid the shortage, the inoculation rate in the state has dwindled. From 2,590,405 doses administered in the first week of the month (April 2-8), the number dropped to 2,053,123 (April 9-15) and further to 2,043,725 over the last one week (April 16-22). This means, the daily average of inoculation dropped to 291,961 over last week, from 370,058 in the first week of the month. The shortage has resulted in shutting down of many centres in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and other parts of the state.

The state has so far received, 14,416,780 doses from the Centre till April 20, against which 13,980,023 doses have been administered to 12.17 million people till 5pm on Friday.

The officials said the infrastructure for vaccination would not be a problem for the government. “We have a robust network of inoculation centres which can be ramped up to 9,000 from the existing 4,200 by converting the sub-centres to full-fledged centres. We have sub-centres at every four villages, with trained community health officers and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives,” said the official.

He said the modalities about the charges at public and private facilities for inoculation and the ratio of the supply of vaccines between these two are yet to be finalised. Tope said the state has a daily capacity of inoculation of 8 lakh against which they are restricted to less than 3 lakh doses a day, due to unavailability.