This story is from April 13, 2021

Bihar: Vaccine shortage hits ‘tika utsav’ in West Champaran

A weekend surge in the number of citizens taking the Covid vaccine jab that promised to make the vaccination drive an ‘utsav’ (festivity) that PM Narendra Modi urged last week was abruptly grounded in West Champaran on Monday.
Bihar: Vaccine shortage hits ‘tika utsav’ in West Champaran
Representative image
BETTIAH: A weekend surge in the number of citizens taking the Covid vaccine jab that promised to make the vaccination drive an ‘utsav’ (festivity) that PM Narendra Modi urged last week was abruptly grounded in West Champaran on Monday. “We have run out of supplies,” civil surgeon Arun K Sinha told this newspaper.
“The vaccine stock situation is dynamic,” Animesh Parashar, additional executive director of the Bihar State Health Society, told this reporter over phone from Patna.
Bihar, he said, had received 9 lakh doses on Friday. “Altogether 2.91 lakh people were administered the vaccine on Saturday while another 3.64 lakh received the jab on Sunday,” Parashar said, adding: “Our supplies, coming at regular intervals, are being promptly distributed to the districts.”
Awadesh K Singh, West Champaran district immunization officer, said only 1330 doses of the vaccine were in the stocks late Sunday evening. “A total of 13,297 shots were given to people on Saturday and another 6174 were inoculated on Sunday. We had received 20,000 doses on Friday,” he said. Singh’s claim of 1330 doses being available on Monday morning was, however, belied by his own arithmetic that indicated a mere 529 doses available after the weekend surge in vaccination in the district.
A large number of people, including several elderly persons who had gone to the vaccination centre at the Government Medical College, Bettiah, on Monday were turned back, said Sanjay Verma, introducing himself as a social worker, while pointing towards the unmanned vaccination room. A solitary security guard at the centre affirmed the shortage. “Yes, many went back as there was no vaccine,” he said.
Dozens of people had left behind photocopies of their Aadhaar cards, many also writing their cellphone numbers on the paper. “Today I was turned back for the third time,” sexagenerian Nathu Sah said. “The centre was vacant. A placard pasted informed that vaccine stock had run out,” Savitri Gupta from Pakki Baoli said in disappointment.
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