Thane district has less than 6% vaccine stock

Even as vaccination for everyone above 45 years of age started from Thursday, Thane district was marred by shortage of vaccines, with most corporations having stock only 6% of the needed stock which can last for only four-five days

Even as vaccination for everyone above 45 years of age started from Thursday, Thane district was marred by shortage of vaccines, with most corporations having stock only 6% of the needed stock which can last for only four-five days.

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The Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) was the worst affected, with merely 7,658 doses in the morning; it received around 36,000 doses by late afternoon. The Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has only 30,000 doses and Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has 40,000 doses.

In Thane city, over 7.9 lakh people have registered themselves on Co-Win app, followed by 7.82 lakh in Kalyan. TMC needs over 6.5 lakh vaccines, while KDMC requires nearly 7 lakh doses to vaccinate those registered on the application. The Thane Municipal Corporation had hardly 4.6% of the required doses. The KDMC has only 5.53% of the doses needed. All these vaccine doses are Covishield whereas Covaxin stock is very low. NMMC commissioner Abhijit Bangar said the city had no vaccines on Tuesday and had to send an SOS to the centre to get additional stock.

“On Sunday, we had supply for only two days, on Tuesday, it was almost over. So we sent a SOS to government and then we received the stock for one more day for Wednesday. On Thursday, even as we started with just a day’s stock of 4000 doses by afternoon, we received new stock,” Bangar said.

The hand to mouth situation was seen even in KDMC, where the drive began with merely 7000 vaccines. KDMC commissioner Vijay Suryavanshi claimed that the civic body could not open new centres for vaccination due to the shortage of the vaccines. The TMC too has vaccine stock only for five days.

A co-ordinator at a vaccination centre in TMC said, “We get vaccine doses depending on the number of bookings that have taken place, an additional 5% doses for walk-in beneficiaries. Initially we used to get sufficient amount of vaccines but the situation has changed to a limited stock of vaccines,” said a health care worker at the vaccination centre at Dhokali.

The district health authorities though agreed there was a shortage till Thursday, they claimed that the situation is improving.

“We have got enough doses on Thursday that will suffice for more than 10 days across Thane District. Most municipal corporations have collected these doses and a few others will do so on Friday. Depending on the request from each civic body we are delivering the doses, if there still is a scarcity the civic body must make additional demand,” said a senior officer from Thane district’s health department.