At meeting with PM Modi, CMs share vaccination concerns | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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At meeting with PM Modi, CMs share vaccination concerns

By, New Delhi
Apr 09, 2021 07:02 AM IST

The Prime Minister defended the vaccination strategy, saying it was at par with other countries, and said the centre needs to prioritise vaccines depending on affected areas, while suggesting states to reduce wastage of doses for better vaccination management.

Maharashtra’s Uddhav Thackeray urged Centre to dispatch more doses and Punjab’s Amarinder Singh sought greater flexibility in deciding eligibility, highlighting issues relating to the coronavirus vaccination during their meeting on Thursday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during a meeting with Chief Ministers on the current Covid-19 situation, in New Delhi. (ANI Photo)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during a meeting with Chief Ministers on the current Covid-19 situation, in New Delhi. (ANI Photo)

The meeting was held against the backdrop of an unrelenting build-up of a second wave of infections. The spike has stressed resources in several hard-hit states and in recent days also frayed their relationship with the Union government, with a war of words breaking out this week over vaccine supply.

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“We aim to vaccinate 17.70 million people and for this we need 4million vaccines weekly. At this moment, we are facing shortage due to which many centres have shut. We are going to get 1.7 million vaccines on April 15 but till then our vaccination drive will be interrupted,” a Maharashtra government official cited the CM as saying.

Thackeray also asked the Centre to source oxygen cylinders and ventilators from other regions for Maharashtra.

The meeting was attended by chief ministers of all states and union territories, except Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee, who was represented instead by the chief secretary. All chief ministers did not speak at the meeting.

Singh sent a letter to the PM immediately after the video conference, asking the central government to come up with a locally flexible vaccination strategy that could allow all adults in a high prevalence area to be immunised, as well as those with liver and kidney diseases under the age of 45 to become eligible.

“The CM also assured the PM during the meeting of all-out efforts by the state government and in his letter stressed on the fact that Punjab’s wave of infections was being dominated by the UK variant, which has been found in a large number of samples,” an official said, asking not to be named.

Singh urged the Union government to share vaccine shipment timelines in advance and asked that genome surveillance to detect the spread of variants be accelerated.

Maharashtra and Punjab are among a clutch of several states, mostly under non-BJP governments, that have raised concerns of vaccine shortage or sought permission to give doses to people under the age of 45 – which the current central government vaccination policy prohibits at present.

The Prime Minister defended the vaccination strategy, saying it was at par with other countries, and said the centre needs to prioritise vaccines depending on affected areas, while suggesting states to reduce wastage of doses for better vaccination management.

Singh told the PM that his administration believes the spread in Punjab has primarily been driven by a public fatigue in following Covid-appropriate behaviour, large political, social and religious gatherings, and the opening of schools and colleges.

In the case of Maharashtra, Thackeray told the PM the spike appeared to have been driven by recent rural elections and rise in weddings, as well as a mutant variant. “From the last one and half years, we have been fighting this virus under your leadership. We had even succeeded in curbing this virus as new cases fell to 2,500-3,000 level. However the consequent Gram Panchayat elections and rush in weddings contributed to increase in number of cases. We saw whole families getting infected in parts of Vidarbha. Despite all precautions, Maharashtra had to bear the brunt,” said Thackeray.

The chief minister of Uttarakhand, where concerns of the outbreak being fanned further is high due to the Kumbh Mela, held a review with state officials after the PM’s meeting and asked for RT-PCR testing as well as vaccinations to be increased in frequency.

Chief ministers of several other states too held meetings with their administration officials following the PM’s video conference and asked for preparations to be made for the April 11-14 “vaccination festival”. Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy set a target for at least 600,000 people to get doses every day in the period, while Telangana’s K Chandrasekhar Rao asked authorities concerned to ensure all frontline workers are vaccinated within the next week.

Manipur chief minister Nongthombam Biren Singh and Goa’s Pramod Sawant too decided to mobilise the state machinery for the April 11-14 campaign.

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