Punjab, Rajasthan join list of states facing vaccine shortage

While Singh pointed out that the state's vaccine stock will only last for three days, Gehlot said the shortage of vaccines was a reality.

Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh and his counterpart in Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot, on Saturday said stocks of vaccine doses against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) are fast dwindling, joining the list of states that have complained of a shortage.

A health department worker testing pilgrims, headed to Pakistan to celebrate Baisakhi festival, for Covid-19 at Golden Temple complex in Amritsar. (Photo by Sameer Sehgal /Hindustan Times)

While Singh pointed out that the state's vaccine stock will only last for three days, Gehlot said the shortage of vaccines was a reality. They were speaking during a virtual meeting chaired by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi with leaders of states ruled by the party to take a view on their ongoing efforts against the coronavirus pandemic. Before this, the Rajasthan chief minister on Friday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that vaccine stocks in his state will last only till Sunday.

"Punjab is left with only five days of supply (5.7 lakh Covid-19 vaccine doses) at the current levels of vaccinating 85000-90000 persons a day. If the state is able to meet its target of 2 lakh vaccines a day, then its current supplies will last only three days," Singh said during the meeting, news agency ANI reported.

Singh added that he had written to the Prime Minister and the Union health minister Harsh Vardhan to send the state the confirmed supply schedules, and urged the Centre to share the schedule for the supply of vaccines with the states over the next quarter based on their confirmed supply orders. "Despite being a slow-starter in vaccination, Punjab has vaccinated more than 16 lakh people, at an average of around 85000-90000 per day," Singh was quoted as saying by ANI.

In the meet with Gandhi, Rajasthan CM Gehlot said that the shortage of vaccines was a reality and the Union government should take states on board as stakeholders and not as their adversaries. Gehlot said that the state authorities are aiming for maximum vaccination of people of 45-year-old age group.

In his letter to the Prime Minister on Friday, Gehlot said that the present stock of vaccine in Rajasthan will finish in the next two days, requesting that at least another 30 lakh doses of vaccine be provided to the state immediately. "We have already planned to increase the pace of vaccination to 5 lakh beneficiaries per day through a collaborative approach and effective mobilisation of beneficiaries," Gehlot said in his letter to PM, reported PTI.

Several Indian states including Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Jharkhand, are facing a shortage of Covid-19 vaccine and have sought immediate assistance from the Centre. India is currently witnessing the second wave of the pandemic and reported more than 140,000 new infections on Saturday, the highest single-day spike ever since the beginning of the pandemic.

The World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus on Friday slammed the “shocking imbalance" in global Covid-19 vaccination who pointed out that while one in four people in rich countries had received a vaccine, only one in 500 people in poorer countries had gotten a dose.

The vaccine shortage stems mostly from India's decision to stop exporting vaccines from the factory of the Serum Institute of Institute (SII), which produces the overwhelming majority of the AstraZeneca doses that Covax counted on to supply around a third of the global population at a time coronavirus is spiking worldwide.