Amid Omicron surge, Centre and Maharashtra indulge in vaccine war

At a time when a rapid surge in Omicron cases has raised alarm bells ringing for India's health care infrastructure, the Centre and Maharastra government have got involved in a war over the availability of Covid19 vaccines.

New Delhi: At a time when a rapid surge in Omicron cases has raised alarm bells ringing for India's health care infrastructure, the Centre and Maharastra government have got involved in a war over the availability of Covid19 vaccines.

A day after Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said that his state is facing a crisis for vaccines, the Union Health Ministry denied such claim and said that vaccines are available with all States and Union Territory (UTs) in advance.

"Today, Maharashtra has over 24 lakh unutilized doses of Covaxin available with it. An additional 6.35 lakh doses have been received today," the health ministry said.

It further said that as per their (Maharashtra government) weekly consumption data available on Co-WIN, the average consumption by Maharashtra for Covaxin to cover the eligible beneficiaries for 15-17 years and for precaution dose is almost 2.94 lakh doses per day.

"Therefore, the State has adequate vaccine doses for about 10 days to cover the eligible beneficiaries with Covaxin.

The health ministry further said that for Covishield, Maharashtra has 1.24 crore unutilized and balance doses available as of date.

"With an average consumption of 3.57 lakhs per day, this will sustain for more than 30 days for the beneficiaries to be vaccinated using the vaccine," the health ministry said.

Referring to media reports over shortage of vaccines in Maharashtra, the health ministry further pointed out that the reports are not factually correct and "do not reflect the correct picture of the available stock of balance and unutilized Covid vaccines doses with Maharashtra."

It may be mentioned here that Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope on Thursday said that his government has placed a demand for more vaccines to the Centre.

"In the meeting over Covid situation with the Prime Minister, we have placed a demand of 40 lakh Covaxin and 50 lakh Covishield vaccines given the shortage being experienced in the current vaccination programme for 15-18 age group and beneficiaries of precautionary dose," Tope has said.

Statistics available with ETV Bharat said that the central government has supplied 1,57,50,62,435 vaccines to the States and UTs to date. A total number of 15,17,25,871 vaccines doses are still available with States and UTs.

As per health ministry statistics, India has administered 1,55,95,28,996 doses of Covid19 vaccines to date.

Maharashtra has registered a total vaccination of 14,25,09,022 with 8,45,39,952 first dose, 5,77,01,166 second dose and 2,67,904 precautionary dose.

The State has 7,283 vaccination sites including 6,699 government and 594 private.