Urgently need Covaxin doses: Maharashtra to Centre

The state has written a letter to the Centre, asking for the urgent supply of Covaxin doses as more than 500,000 people, from the age group of above 45 years, are due for their second dose. The state’s inoculation drive is expected to be massively hit on Sunday, if the new stock does not reach by morning,

The state has written a letter to the Centre, asking for the urgent supply of Covaxin doses as more than 500,000 people, from the age group of above 45 years, are due for their second dose. The state’s inoculation drive is expected to be massively hit on Sunday, if the new stock does not reach by morning,

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Dr Pradeep Vyas, principal secretary of the health department, wrote to the ministry of health and family welfare. The letter also said that since the Centre had told them to not retain the buffer stock for the second dose, the state did not reserve it.

State public health minister Rajesh Tope had said on Friday that if the Centre failed to provide them with a fresh stock of Covaxin, they will be left with no option, but to divert the stock meant for the age group of 18-44 years. After the Centre supplied 1,150,000 doses during this week, the state has now run out of stock. Many vaccination centres were shut down on Saturday owing to the shortage of doses, while most of them will not operate on Sunday as well.

After inoculating 234,578 people on Saturday, the state is almost exhausted with the vaccine stock. The state inoculated 4,54,546 and 3,63,753 people on May 6 and 7 respectively.

“Out of 900,000 doses received in the past two days, fewer than 100,000 doses are left with the state. This has hindered implementation of the vaccination drive,” Tope had said on Friday.

The central government has assured Maharashtra of 2,300,000 doses of vaccine until May 15, of which 1,150,000 have been delivered in the first week of May. “We expect the remaining stock to be delivered this week, but there is no clarity on the time line, which makes it difficult for us to plan and transport the doses to remote places,” said an official from health department.

Minority affairs minister Nawab Malik, of the NCP, said that the Central government’s failure in supplying the adequate doses in due time has left many in the lurch. “The Centre has been operating the vaccination drive through CoWIN app and has the data of the people due for the second dose. Despite it, there is no supply of the doses required. It is unacceptable that lakhs of people are left in distress waiting for their second dose,” he said.

Dr DN Patil, state immunisation officer, said, “We have almost exhausted the existing stock of 1,150,000 lakh doses we received over the last one week. We are expecting the fresh stock of more than 3 lakh on Monday morning. We have been following with the Central government for the stock of more than 5 lakh Covaxin vials for the people waiting for their second dose. The number of centres depends on the stock we receive from the Centre.”