States seek more vaccines to keep new drive’s momentum

Based on current capacity and import details available, it is unlikely that India will have access to the 72 million doses it needs over the next nine days of June and the 248 million doses it needs in July to keep up this pace.

Monday’s record of 8.5 million vaccine doses administered till 10 pm will be difficult to sustain beyond a few days, several states admitted , if they do not receive more doses from the Union government, and at regular intervals, which, in turn, will depend on vaccine supplies.

The 8.27 million shots administered is the highest ever in India, and only China has administered more vaccines in a day. (PTI)

Based on current capacity and import details available, it is unlikely that India will have access to the 72 million doses it needs over the next nine days of June and the 248 million doses it needs in July to keep up this pace.

Three states West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh , all ruled by non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments, did not start the free-vaccines-for-all drive citing shortage of vaccines. But it was clear that both the Union government and other state governments wanted to make a success of Day 1 of the new phase of the vaccine drive.

Starting Monday, the Union government will acquire and allocate vaccine doses to the states, for free. These will total around 75% of the vaccines available in India, with the remainder going to private hospitals which will continue to offer jabs for a price. Between May 1 and June 21, the states were responsible for procuring vaccines and vaccinating those in the 18-45 age group.

BJP ruled states such as Haryana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh claimed to have met the vaccination targets and said they have been assured by the Central government that there will be no shortage of vaccines to sustain inoculation of high numbers of people per day. That may be difficult given the overall supply situation.

The 8.27 million shots administered is the highest ever in India, and only China has administered more vaccines in a day. Till Monday night, India had fully vaccinated 50.59 million people and partially vaccinated 182.49 million others.

Most vaccine manufacturers have assured an increased supply only from August. The peak in supply may happen sometime in October.

A senior official of the West Bengal health department said the state did not start vaccination for all from Monday and continued to only vaccinate priority groups.

“We will continue to vaccinate the priority groups first. We don’t have enough vaccines. If we start universal vaccination, there will be a mismatch and the priority groups won’t get the vaccines. Unless we complete vaccinating the target groups we won’t be able to vaccinate others,” said Ajoy Chakraborty, director of health services.

On Monday, the state had 1.6 million doses; it has, to date, vaccinated 4.35 million people fully and 10.64 million, partially. “We will get around a million more doses by the end of this month. The consignments are scheduled to arrive on June 24, June 26 and June 27. In July we expect to get an estimated 7 million doses. Private hospitals will get around 2 million doses,” he added.

The Maharashtra government, too, decided not to start vaccinating everyone. It continued to vaccinate those over the age of 30, a drive it started on June 19, and which it will continue till it starts getting adequate stock of vaccines from the Centre, said state health minister Rajesh Tope. “We have decided not to start the drive for all above 18 years as we are not getting adequate stock. Thus, the state will continue to cover all the beneficiaries that are 30 years and above,” Tope said. The state started Monday with a stock of 1.5 million doses.

Andhra Pradesh, which administered 1.3 million doses on Sunday, was left with 1.28 lakh doses on Monday. “We are expecting a supply of additional doses in a day or two. Only when we get additional supply, we can start vaccination for all,” said G Devanandam, the officer in charge of Covid-19 vaccine distribution in Andhra Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh education minister Vishwas Sarang said the state has enough doses for next three days and will receive more doses by the end of the week. “We had a stock of 1.9 million doses on Monday and this will last three days. We don’t expect any shortage of vaccines.”

Officials in Assam said the state has set itself a target of administering 300,000 doses daily from Monday as part of an enhanced immunisation drive and aims to continue it for a month and vaccinate 9 million people in 30 days. Assam had a daily vaccination average of around 50,000 doses and had crossed 100,000 doses in a day only twice (both in last week). To be sure, it wasn’t immediately clear whether the state would receive 9 million vaccine doses from the Union government in the next month. Delhi, for instance, has been allocated only 1.5 million doses for the month of July.

Till Sunday, Assam administered 5.35 million doses to its target population of 23.13 million people above 18 years (nearly 65% of the state’s entire population) who are eligible to get vaccinated. On Monday, 2184 vaccination centres were in operation. Assam had a stock of 7,28,000 doses of vaccine on Monday.

“The Monday stock will last for two days if we continue administering 300,000 doses daily. We are expecting to get fresh stock of vaccines by Monday evening and it should help continue our drive,” said Munindra Nath Ngatey, director, (health services-family welfare).

Bihar, where chief minister Nitish Kumar has directed officials to complete vaccination to all eligible people by year-end, is expected to receive 4.9 million doses by June-end. “We don’t expect a shortage of vaccines to meet the CM’s target of vaccinating all by the end of December,” said a senior officer of the Bihar Health Society.

Goa has around 1.30 lakh vaccine doses in stock which will last around six days at the current rate of vaccination. In Rajasthan, an official said the state has around a million doses which could last till Tuesday evening and the next lot of 500,000 doses is expected by June 24, meaning the inoculation drive will resume by June 26. Rajasthan has till date vaccinated over 21.1 million, which includes over 17.5 million with the first dose and 3.5 million with both doses . Officials in Tripura and Haryana said that they have vaccines to continue with the vaccination- for-all drive.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said the state met its target of vaccinating 0.6 million people on Monday and expressed confidence that it would vaccinate a million a day in July. “We have been assured of enough supply of vaccines to increase vaccinations,” a state health department official said.