E-Paper
Bihar diverts Covid vaccines for 45+ to cater to younger population
Ruchir Kumar ruchirkumar@hindustantimes
Ruchir Kumar
ruchirkumar@hindustantimes.com
PATNA: Faced with an acute scarcity of Covid-19 vaccines for the younger population, the Bihar government Wednesday diverted supplies meant for the 45 years and above, to cater to the requirement of the 18-45 years population.
Bihar diverted 3,97,410 doses of Covishield, which it received from the Serum Institute of India, Pune, Wednesday afternoon as also 1,04,620 doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin it received from Hyderabad on May 31 for the 18-45 years age group, said state health officials.
The Centre supplies Covid-19 vaccines for 45+ free of cost, while the state has to buy most of them for the 18-45 years population.
Vaccination of the younger population had halted across the state at regular session sites due to vaccine shortage, said officials.
In what was more a symbolic gesture, the health department was conducting special camps to inoculate a small population.
All 59 regular session sites in Patna, which has the highest vaccine demand, were shut for the last five days as stocks had dried up. However, special camps were being conducted at different offices to keep the count ticking in its vaccination database.
The accountant general office, the Bihar State Power Holding Corporation, SBI, NTPC Barh, office of the agriculture department, besides a few orphanages under the social welfare department were among the few off-site camps where vaccines were administered in Patna on Tuesday.
For instance, on June 1, only 2,438 people in the 18-45 years age group were inoculated out of the total 48,139 vaccinated across the state during the day. Patna accounted for only 889 of them.
Similarly, on Wednesday, only 2,216 people in the younger age group out of the total 45,315 people could be vaccinated in the state.
Bihar health officials were maintaining a stoic silence on the issue. Repeated efforts to contact Manoj Kumar, state nodal officer for vaccination and also the executive director of the State Health Society, Bihar (SHSB), proved futile as he did not respond to phone calls or text messages. No other officer in the health department was willing to talk on record.
GOVT MUM ON BLACK FUNGS
The health department was reluctant to share information on patients affected by mucormycosis and its fatalites. The state government’s daily bulletin on Covid-19 found no mention of mucormycosis. It did not issue a separate bulletin either, despite the Bihar government declaring black fungus a notifiable disease on May 22 and the state reporting 394 cases so far.
The nodal officer appointed for mucormycosis said the integrated disease surveillance progarmme (IDSP) unit of the SHSB was tasked to compile figures on case load and fatality due to black fungus and upload the information on the National Health Portal. The IDSP, on the other hand, said the medical colleges had been asked to do it.
The state health brass and executive director, SHSB, chose not to respond on the issue.
Meanwhile, the state health department had cancelled all leaves of doctors, nurses, paramedics and health support staff, including fourth grade staff till June 15 in view of high incidence of Covid-19 cases in the state.
