This story is from April 7, 2021

Gondia has no vaccination stock, five dists have for 1-2 days only

Even though the Centre has been repeatedly saying there is no shortage of doses, the Covid-19 vaccination programme is set to grind to a halt in Gondia district on Wednesday as it has no stock remaining after Tuesday’s programme. Akola, Yavatmal, Buldhana and Washim — all in Amravati Division, along with Nagpur Rural and city’s Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) have enough stock to last only one more day.
Gondia has no vaccination stock, five dists have for 1-2 days only
A state government official said the Centre was not replenishing stock continuously
NAGPUR: Even though the Centre has been repeatedly saying there is no shortage of doses, the Covid-19 vaccination programme is set to grind to a halt in Gondia district on Wednesday as it has no stock remaining after Tuesday’s programme. Akola, Yavatmal, Buldhana and Washim — all in Amravati Division, along with Nagpur Rural and city’s Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) have enough stock to last only one more day.
They will stop vaccinating recipients from Thursday.
A state official said Centre is not replenishing stock continuously.
Officials from Gondia district told TOI that the district had to reduce the number of centres from 104 to 80 on Monday due to shortage of doses. “On Tuesday, we operated only 10 centres and managed to vaccinate 1,318 as against more than 4,000 on the previous two days,” they said. Gondia has been using Covishield since January 16 when the vaccination programme started.
Officials of Amravati division said the four districts has neither Covishield nor Covaxin in the store rooms. “Whatever stock is remaining is at the vaccination centres. Instructions have been given to all districts to stop vaccination at primary health centres (PHCs) in villages and continue only at district general hospitals and rural hospitals on Wednesday. If no fresh stock is received by Thursday, no one will get vaccinated. Amravati district has doses for two more days,” they said.
Similarly, the Nagpur zilla parishad store room was emptied on April 4. The ZP vaccinates people in rural areas in 188 centres. Nearly 25,000 were being vaccinated every day in the rural. On Tuesday, 23,614 were vaccinated.
As on Tuesday, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), which runs the programme in city, has 22,000 doses of Covishield in its store room and some more doses at the centres. Out of these, NMC gave the zilla parishad 20,000 so that the programme continues uninterrupted on Wednesday. The civic body inoculated 9,794 on April 5 and 15,990 on April 6.

The NMC, however, is facing shortage of Covaxin doses, which is administered in six centres, since the last four days. As a result, four are dispensing Covishield while the programme has stopped at the other two.
Officials from GMCH said the 550 doses of remaining Covaxin at the GMCH will last till Thursday. In case this centre is also converted into Covishield, the second dose of healthcare workers (HCW), frontline workers (FLW) and people from age-appropriate group will be effected.
Guardian minister Nitin Raut and divisional commissioner Sanjeev Kumar had upped the vaccination target to 40,000 per day which is likely to take a hit if the district does not receive fresh stock.
State immunisation officer DN Patil said all the stock given by the Centre to all districts according to the number of active cases have been distributed. “Today, I do not have any stock. Some districts have already raised alerts regarding the vaccination programme saying that they have stock for just one or two days. The Centre needs to continuously replenish the stock as we have scaled up our vaccination programme across the state. We are touching over 4 lakh now daily. Last week, we had received 26.77 lakh Covishield doses and 3.45 lakh Covaxin doses, which were distributed across the state,” he said.
State health minister Rajesh Tope on Tuesday has raised the issue of shortage of doses with Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan in a meeting.
After Maharashta demanded more doses, Union minister for information and broadcasting Prakash Javadekar, on March 26, had slammed the MVA government citing 56% doses were remaining unused and suggested that the state must escalate the vaccination programme.
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About the Author
Anjaya Anparthi

Anjaya Rajam Anparthi, 33, is a principal correspondent with The Times of India, Nagpur edition and looking after civic beat. He also likes to write stories from power and mining beats. He is a fond lover of city’s environment and highlight stories related to trees, greenery, rivers, lakes, sewage system, water treatment plants, and pollution-level. The issues related to civic amenities takes him to various parts of the city, slum areas, posh localities and meet citizens, social activists, NGOs, corporators and political leaders. Daylong visit to the NMC’s administrative offices makes him easy in learning various planning and developments of the city. He too likes to visit the developmental projects being undertaken under JNNURM Scheme once in a week. Maintaining a good contact with 145 corporators and officials, he like to highlight various issues related to the city spread in over 217 sq.km.

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