Key Points:
- “We have the most number of active patients, positivity rate and death with a population of 120 million. Why are we given so few vaccines?” Health Minister Rajesh Tope questioned the Centre.
- 25 Vaccination Centres were shut by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday because of Shortage of the Vaccine Doses.
- “Satara, Sangli, Panvel have stopped vaccinations,” state health minister Rajesh Tope said.
On Thursday, the doors of around 25 Vaccination Centres were shut by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) because of Shortage of the Vaccine Doses.
By Friday, the numbers were said to double and from Saturday, Mumbai will be forced to completely stop vaccinations if stocks are not topped up, said officials, adding that the Mumbai city has less than a lakh doses left.
“Right now, vaccination centres have a few hundreds of doses left. All will exhaust their stock on Friday. Every day, we have been asking the government for more stock. The situation has been like this since the initial stock arrived in January. We have been getting stock that would last us three to four days only,” said Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani, The Indian Express reported.
In all, 56,909 people were vaccinated between Wednesday evening and Thursday. Of them, 56,514 were given Covishield and 395 Covaxin.
It’s not just Mumbai, but the state of Maharashtra that is having a shortage of daily vaccine doses. Throwing light on the issue, Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule had tweeted that vaccination was halted in parts of the state last evening. Pune also shut over 100 vaccination centres because of vaccine shortage
“Satara, Sangli, Panvel have stopped vaccinations,” state health minister Rajesh Tope said.
Health Minister Rajesh Tope was seen questioning the Centre saying that Maharashtra is being discriminated when it comes to vaccines.
“I have just been informed that the Center increased COVID19 vaccine doses from 7 lakh to 17 lakh. Even this is less because we need 40 lakh vaccine doses a week and 17 lakh doses are not enough,” Mr Tope was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
“Maharashtra has double the population of Gujarat. Gujarat has got one crore doses and we have got one crore doses,” he said.
Adding in, Tope also said, “I talked to Dr Harshavardhan [Union health minister]… I raised the issue of discrimination with us. We have the most number of active patients, positivity rate and death with a population of 120 million. Why are we given so few vaccines?”
He added, “Harshvardhan Ji assured me that corrections will be done soon. We are still waiting.”
With this statement, we go back to the time when Dr. Harsh Vardhan, the Union Health Minister accused the state of making false claims to divert attention from its mismanagement of the outbreak. And also, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, accusing the state of WASTING the vaccine doses.
Tope said that the vaccine issue will be discussed with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with other topics of Remdesivir supply and price control, supply of oxygen from nearby states, and ventilator operational support.
