A doctor at a hospital in West Bengal has claimed manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccine have said they won’t be able to supply the shots till June as the state government and private hospitals look to kick off the third phase of the vaccination drive scheduled to begin from Saturday across the country, news agency ANI reported.
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“This time vaccine supply will not be (given) by the government but we have been asked to write to manufacturers directly and we have written to Bharat Biotech and SII for vaccines,” Dr Rupali Basu, the managing director and chief executive officer of Kolkata’s Woodlands Hospital, told news agency ANI on Friday. She added, “They (vaccine manufacturers) have written to us that they won’t be able to supply us vaccines till June, so we still don’t have the vaccines with us. We’re ready with vaccination centres but the moment the vaccines come to us we’ll able to vaccinate.”
The doctor’s statement came a day ahead of the nationwide launch of Phase 3 Covid-19 vaccination. However, West Bengal is not the only state that is not launching the campaign yet, several states and Union territories including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi, have said they will start vaccinating citizens above the age of 18 years at a later date as they don’t have enough stock and are waiting for vaccine manufacturers to provide them with a substantial number of vials to inoculate the citizens in the large age group of 18 to 44 years.
Basu said May 1 is a holiday in West Bengal and the following day is the result day for assembly elections held earlier in March and April while May 3 and 4 are also not vaccination days. “... Our vaccination starts on May 5, so I have four more days. I hope that I will be starting vaccination drive for the 18-44 age group May 5 onwards," she told ANI on Friday.
{{/usCountry}}Basu said May 1 is a holiday in West Bengal and the following day is the result day for assembly elections held earlier in March and April while May 3 and 4 are also not vaccination days. “... Our vaccination starts on May 5, so I have four more days. I hope that I will be starting vaccination drive for the 18-44 age group May 5 onwards," she told ANI on Friday.
{{/usCountry}}The vaccination drive in Bengal comes at a crucial time as the state is registering grim records almost every day for the past few days. The eastern state registered the highest single-day Covid-19 deaths with 96 people succumbing to the disease, the health department said in a bulletin on Friday, as its infection tally mounted to 828,366 with a record one-day spike of 17,411 new cases.
Experts have attributed the tremendous spike in Covid-19 cases to mass gatherings that took place in the state as political parties held election campaign rallies and roadshows despite the emergence of the second wave of the pandemic that has taken the country’s death toll beyond 208,000 amid stretched health infrastructure.
The central government’s decision to vaccinate all adults also came as the second wave wrecked havoc across states. At present, India has been reporting over 300,000 cases daily for over a week.
Registration for the people aged above 18 years began from 4pm on Wednesday. Potential beneficiaries can either register directly on CoWIN portal (cowin.gov.in) or through the Aarogya Setu app.