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Daily vaccinations come down to 4k in state, less than 200 cases
Government has only 0.1mn doses of Covishield available, only 1,323 public facilities offer vaccination
Vaccination across Maharashtra has seen a drastic drop as the daily case load has come down sharply with state reporting less than 200 cases every day since the past few weeks and fatalities are also in single digits.
Officials from state health department have noted that daily vaccination count is just 4,000 across the state when only 12.27 per cent eligible population have taken booster dose.
With inoculation demand fallen drastically, private hospitals have stopped stocking vaccine while government centres too have reduced. As on date, there were only 1,323 public facilities offering vaccination while 78 private hospitals still showed as vaccination centres although many did not have stock.
One of the reasons private hospitals have stopped stalking vaccine is their expiry within months. Recently Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla confirmed that the company had stopped making new Covid-19 vaccines in December 2021 and also had to dump at least 100 million doses after they expired.
As of Monday, officials said vaccine stock with the department is also limited, with only one lakh doses of Covishield remaining with the state department. Corbevax doses are already over with the state.
Speaking about the drop in vaccination, Dr Sachin Desai, state immunisation officer said, “Although Corbevax vaccine stock is over, Covishied is as low as one lakh. But there are 18 lakh doses of Covaxin doses with the state. The average doses administered are just around 4,000 across the state. The response for the vaccination has seen a drastic decrease post festivities.”
He added that the response for Corbevax precaution dose is low in the state from the beginning.
“Many patients were not very keen to take the precautionary dose of Corbevax. We have seen that the vaccination among 12 to 18 years of age group was also low. Now, that the overall Covid cases are reducing, the beneficiaries are not very keen to take jabs,” said Dr Desai.
Dr Meenakshi Deshpande, president, Indian Medical Association (IMA) Pune Chapter, said the overall threat of Covid has seen a decrease.
“The restrictions are also not there and so, many people have not completed their vaccination doses. As vaccination reduced, many private hospitals reported that there has been vaccine wastage. However, the government should devise a policy wherein vaccine doses are available for those who want it. Like in case of swine flu, there is a yearly shot available,” said Deshpande.
