India struggles with vaccine shortage at the height of the pandemic

India is not struggling with rising COVID cases alone. Apart from struggling with the second wave of COVID-19 it's facing a severed shortage of vaccines. Several states across the country have flagged this concern to the Centre asking for additional supply and necessary assistance.

Union Health minister Harsh Vardhan recently hit out at the Maharashtra government after the latter said it was running out of COVID-19 vaccines.

Vardhan called the allegations of vaccine shortage "utterly baseless". "This is nothing but an attempt to divert attention from Maharashtra government's repeated failures to control the spread of pandemic," he added.

Other states like Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand also have similar complaints that they are facing a shortage of vaccines. Reports have emerged that several states were shutting vaccine centres early or turning people away due to shortage of vaccines.

Maharashtra

Some senior health officials in Maharashtra have said that they may have to force halt vaccination for four to five days next week if the new stock does not come. This development came some 5 days ago.  Health officials also said that they had to make multiple requests to the Centre to ramp up the vaccine supply. "We have been informed by the Centre that new stocks will come by April 15. In that case, we may have to halt vaccination for a few days," said Health Secretary Dr Pradeep Vyas.

"We do not have enough vaccine doses. Health workers have to turn away recipients. We cannot afford to slow the pace. We are ready to increase daily immunisations to 5 lakh, maybe scale up to 6 lakh," Health Minister Rajesh Tope said. He had requested for more doses, especially of Covaxin. "There is more demand for Covaxin" he added.

Punjab

Just a few days back, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh had said that hospitals in Punjab have only 5 days of COVID-19 vaccine stock left. Singh mentioned that despite having a slow start, Punjab has inoculated more than 16 lakh persons, at an average of 85,000-90,000 per day.

Singh said during his meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi on COVID-19 situation, "Punjab left with only five days of supply (5.7 lakh Covid vaccine doses) at the current levels of vaccinating 85,000-90,000 persons a day. ID the state is to meet its target of 2 lakh vaccines a day, then its current supplies will last only three days."

Rajasthan

In the same virtual meeting chaired by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot also raised the same concern saying that there is a shortage of vaccines and the Union government should take states on board as stakeholders and not as their adversaries. Gehlot also wrote a letter to Prime Minister on Friday (April 9) that Rajasthan will soon run out of vaccine stock and that they are in a dire need of another 30 lakh doses of vaccine doses. "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.

Chattisgarh

Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel also told Sonia Gandhi in the same virtual meeting that the state will run out of the vaccine stock soona d government should help ramp up the vaccine supply in the state.

"Chhattisgarh has received 35.83 lakh vaccine doses so far. Presently, we have stock of 4.83 lakh doses which can last for 2 days. We have requested the Central government to provide vaccine doses for seven days so that the vaccination drive continues to run smoothly," said Baghel on Saturday (April 10, 2021).

Photo: Chandradeep Kumar/ India Today

Delhi

Delhi has also flagged vaccine shortage concern amid surge in coronavirus cases. A few days back Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said that the national Capital has vaccines left for seven to 10 days, as per ANI. He urged the Centre to remove the age criteria for vaccinations and scale up the vaccination process.

"Even if the Delhi government has to beg, I will personally beg for vaccines for the people of Delhi if the need arises," said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday (April 11, 2021). "We will conduct door-to-door vaccination in Delhi if the central government permits it. We can vaccinate all of Delhi in three months," said CM Kejriwal.

Odisha

Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Kisore Das also wrote to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan for the second time on Monday requesting the Centre to supply 25 lakh doses of vaccine to the State. "Our daily vaccination has come down to around 1 lakh though we have a capacity of inoculating 3 lakh beneficiaries a day," said Das.

Andhra Pradesh

On the day of grand 'Tika Utsav', Andhra Pradesh has run out of COVID vaccine doses. The state was left only with 60,000 vaccines on Sunday when nationwide 'Tika Utsav' was observed. And per the health officials, the state so far received 40.44 lakh vaccine doses (Covaxin and Covishield) from the government for mass inoculation drive.

Jharkhand

Jharkhand is also facing Covid-19 vaccine doses shortage, health minister Banna Gupta said on Thursday (April, 8). "We have stock for the next 1-2 days. We have made a request to the Union Health Minister and I am hopeful that he will provide the vaccines," said Gupta as per ANI report.