States running out of Covid-19 vaccine doses -Dozens of centres in Maharashtra and Odisha suspended operations

Dozens of centres in Maharashtra and Odisha suspended operations

Several private hospitals in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, too have reported they have no vaccines, while Bengal, Odisha and Rajasthan have told the Centre they would run out of vaccine stocks in two days; File picture

TT Bureau, PTI   | New Delhi   | 10.04.21: Dozens of Covid-19 vaccination centres in Maharashtra and Odisha suspended operations on Friday after running out of vaccine stocks, a day after Union health minister Harsh Vardhan had asserted there was no vaccine shortage.

Several private hospitals in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, too have reported they have no vaccines, while Bengal, Odisha and Rajasthan have told the Centre they would run out of vaccine stocks in two days.

The Union health ministry did not explain why so many vaccination centres in at least five states had or would soon run out of stocks, but one health expert tracking the campaign said it was “obviously either a supply issue or a distribution issue”.

Vardhan had tweeted on Thursday that India had administered about 91 million doses and had 24 million doses “in stock” and 19 million doses “in the pipeline”, without clarifying what “pipeline” meant.

“Where does the question of (vaccine) shortages arise? We’re continuously monitoring and enhancing supply,” Vardhan wrote.

Let’s put an end to fear mongering now!#COVID19Vaccine doses:

Total administered: 9 cr+

In stock/nearing delivery to states: 4.3 cr+

Where does question of shortages arise?

We're continuously monitoring & enhancing supply pic.twitter.com/NllmH3kifQ

— Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) April 8, 2021

Two senior health officials, both of whom are involved in guiding the country’s vaccination strategy, failed to respond to queries from The Telegraph about multiple states facing shortages despite the minister’s assurances.

A third official, also advising the vaccination strategy, said: “I don’t have the information that you’re looking for.”

Health officials had earlier insisted that the Centre was monitoring the vaccine stocks and the daily use in every state. 

“If this is being done efficiently, why should any vaccination centre run out of stocks?” a senior public health expert asked.

“An efficient distribution system would ensure the stocks get replenished before they run out,” the public health and infectious disease expert who is not associated with the vaccination campaign told this newspaper.

On Friday, as India recorded over 131,000 new Covid-19 cases, the highest daily count until now, inoculations were suspended at sites in Mumbai and Odisha.

In Mumbai, city health authorities told PTI that 75 of the 120 vaccination centres across the city, including a jumbo Covid-19 vaccination centre in a key business district, had suspended inoculation because of shortages.

The remaining centres were likely to suspend the vaccination drive by Friday afternoon or evening as the stocks were fast depleting, the officials said.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s executive health officer, Mangala Gomare, told the agency that Mumbai was expected to get 180,000 doses on Friday.

The jumbo Covid-19 centre, where the civic body has set up a mega inoculation facility, suspended vaccinations after administering the less than 200 doses available in stock, a doctor from the centre said.

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that his state would run out of vaccines within two days, and requested at least 3 million doses. Rajasthan has administered over 8.6 million doses and plans to inoculate 500,000 people every day, Gehlot said.

More than 700 vaccination centres in Odisha have already suspended inoculations because of a lack of vaccines, state officials said.

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik had flagged the acute shortage of vaccines in the state during Modi’s interaction with chief ministers on Thursday. Patnaik had urged Modi to ensure that Odisha had enough vaccine stocks for at least 10 days.

A public health expert said it was unclear what criteria the Centre was using to distribute the vaccines among different states.

Vardhan had said on Thursday that Maharashtra and Rajasthan were two of the top three states in the allocation of Covid-19 vaccine doses.

“Both are non-BJP government states,” he had tweeted, releasing figures of the doses: Maharashtra (10.6 million), Gujarat (10.5 million), Rajasthan (10.4 million).

But Maharashtra’s population of 120 million is nearly twice Gujarat’s 64 million. "Ideally we would expect the vaccine distribution to be in proportion to the states’ populations and caseloads,” said Dileep Mavlankar, director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Ahmedabad.

India’s count of active patients rose on Friday to nearly 980,000. Among these, about 44,000 patients are on oxygen support, 22,000 are in intensive care units and nearly 4,500 are on ventilator, according to data presented on Friday by Vardhan at a Group of Ministers meeting on Covid-19.

Ten states — Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Rajasthan — account for over 80 per cent of the new patients.