On the brink, Bihar hopes to get 8.9 lakh doses today

Bihar, which has achieved 17% first dose Covid-19 vaccination coverage against the target population of 10

Bihar, which has achieved 17% first dose Covid-19 vaccination coverage against the target population of 10.41 crore (Census 2011), was forced to close down some session sites, refuse vaccines to many private session sites and go slow on the inoculation drive as it faced a shortage of vaccines.

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The Centre was airlifting 8.9 lakh doses of vaccines on Friday to tide over the crisis, said officials.

Darbhanga civil surgeon Dr Sanjiva Kumar Sinha said, “We will have to stop the vaccination programme in the district on Friday due to shortage of vaccines. If we get the stock by Friday evening, we will resume the vaccination drive from Saturday.”

The state’s second dose vaccination coverage against eligible beneficiaries was 14%, said officials.

Sheohar led among the total 38 districts, achieving 25.4% first dose vaccination coverage, followed by Nalanda (23.6%) and Patna (23.3%).

In terms of second dose vaccination coverage of eligible beneficiaries, Sheohar, however, achieved only 10.7%, Nalanda 11.8% and Patna 20.2% , said a health officer who did not wish to be identified.

As cases of coronavirus rise, reporting a single-day high of 1,527 new infections on Wednesday that was six times the cases reported before Holi, Bihar has seen a sudden increase in the number of people opting to take the vaccine shot. The irony, however, was that most of the beneficiaries opted for walk-ins over pre-registration, keeping officials guessing about the number of vaccine vials to be allocated to a particular session site on a given day. This has led to heavy rush at some urban vaccination centres, leading to shortage of vaccines at some session sites.

Private vaccination centres claimed they faced hardship in getting the vaccine on Thursday.

“Officials at the Gardanibagh hospital initially refused us vaccines this morning, when 100 people had already queued up at our centre for vaccination. After much persuasion, we were allotted seven vials in two lots later in the afternoon against our daily requirement of 11-12 vials of Covishield, which suffices for 110 to 120 people. We have been advised not to hold back beneficiaries for vaccination tomorrow, as getting the vaccines is doubtful,” said Dr Amulya Kumar Singh, director of the Akshat Sewa Sadan in Patna.

The Nestiva Hospital, another private vaccination session site at Yarpur locality in Patna, claimed it had not received any vaccine till 1pm on Thursday.

The GS Neurosciences, another private vaccination session site in New Patliputra Colony of Patna, claimed to have received only two vials of Covishield in the morning, against its average daily requirement of 10 vials (1 vial of Covishield suffices for 10 people).

The Murlidhar memorial health facility at Barh subdivision, a private session site, was advised to close down for Thursday and Friday, said district health officials.

The state vaccine depot at the Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH) in Patna had exhausted its stock of vaccines on Tuesday itself.

Reserve stock of Covaxin, the other vaccine approved for inoculation against Covid-19, had depleted altogether at the state vaccine depot.

The Patna civil surgeon office on Thursday alerted session sites, other than medical colleges, through a common WhatsApp group message that the vaccine was not allotted to any centre on Thursday and anyone who finds it in use should inform the office.

“We were left with 8,380 doses of Covishield at the state vaccine depot that we allocated to the district vaccination store, Patna, on Tuesday. We are left with no vaccines at the state depot. This crisis has emerged for the first time since the vaccination drive began on January 16,” said an official requesting anonymity.

Manoj Kumar, executive director, State Health Society, Bihar, however, denied any vaccine shortage in the state. “The Centre will not give us 2 crore vaccines in bulk for the target population of 45 years and above. It keeps replenishing the stock from time to time and is committed to providing as many vaccine vials we need,” said Kumar.

“We have sent our requirement on vaccines to the Centre, which supplies them from time to time based upon the utilisation that shows up on the CoWIN portal. We also follow up our vaccine requirement during our virtual meetings with the Centre,” said Manoj Kumar,

“Bihar has so far received 46,55,650 doses of the vaccine since the Covid-19 vaccination drive began pan-India on January 16. We were left with 4,16,390 doses on Wednesday. We will get the next lot of 8.9 lakh doses of vaccines tomorrow (Friday),” he said.

(With input from Bishnu K Jha from Darbhanga)