Covid-19: 71 Vaccination centres shut in Mumbai, shortages reported elsewhere too

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has branded Covid-19 vaccination drive as a ‘festival’ and called for a ‘Teeka Utsav’ or ‘Vaccination Festival’ to be celebrated/ observed/ attended between April 11 the birth anniversary of Jyotiba Phule and April 14 the birth anniversary of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, news of vaccine centres shutting down and some even closing inoculation drives have come in. Ironically many are from Mumbai, Maharashtra, where the visionary leaders Phule and Ambedkar hail from.

This despite the fact that the state has been raising concerns of running out of the stock of vaccines over the past two weeks, and instead has been responded to with political brickbats from Union Ministers. However, the issue was not addressed by the PM, in his meeting with the chief ministers held on Thursday, and he once again “requested the States for 100 per cent vaccination of 45 plus population in the high focus districts”, stated the official statements. The PM said that “efforts should be made to vaccinate the maximum number of people during the vaccination festival.”

However, forget ‘festival’, even the regular vaccination drive seems to have been affected in Maharashtra. According to news reports a vaccination centre in Nagpur has put up a notice with ‘Vaccine stocks currently not available’ written on it.

According to a report in NDTV, over 70 vaccination centres have shut down in Mumbai after running out of Covid vaccine doses. The biggest is the vaccination centre at BKC where protests were being held after the shut down.  

Rajesh Dere, Dean at the centre, told the media that while they used to get vaccines a day ahead as buffer stock, the supply did not come last night. The centre had only “160 doses,” he said. Many seeking vaccines have been turned away, or have not gone after checking the news.

According to Mumbai’s civic body Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) the city has 120 centres to inoculate people, 49 are run by the Maharashtra government and the BMC and 40,000 to 50,000 people are inoculated at each. Now around 71 centres have run out of vaccines, reported NDTV. Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar told the media, “There are several vaccination centers that have zero vaccines now and vaccination has stopped there…I have come to know that some 76,000 to 1 Lakh doses are about to reach Mumbai by today but I don’t have any official information on this.” 

The Maharashtra government has been flagging the shortage of vaccines, for some time now. Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope told the media that “Gujarat population is six crore & they got one crore vaccine doses while Maharashtra’s population is double than Gujarat, but got only 1.4 Cr vaccine doses.” Covid-19 vaccine doses were unavailable in areas such as Satara, Panvel and Pune in Maharashtra, and the vaccination drive was reportedly halted a day ago. Maharashtra’s Minister, Water Resources Department & CAD, Jayant Patil, also said that the state “has received 85 lakh vaccines” for a population of 12.30 crore. He said Gujarat has gots 80 lakh vaccines, even though it has a much lower population at 6.50 crore. 

Meanwhile Dr Harshvardhan the Union Health Minister blamed states, especially attacking Maharashtra government for the surge in Covid numbers. On Thursday Union minister and senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar, also alleged that five lakh doses of the COVID-19 vaccines were “wasted in Maharashtra due to a lack of planning by the state government.” Javadekar said that “23 lakh doses of the vaccines are available with the Maharashtra government…which is a stock for five to six days.”

Shortages are also being reported even from Uttar Pradesh, a BJP governed state even as the centre continues to claim that there is no shortage of vaccines. According to news reports some private hospitals in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, that shares a border with Delhi, are  already facing the crisis. Many hospitals in Ghaziabad do not have clarity on when the next stock will arrive and have pasted notices at their entrance, saying they have run out of vaccine does. According to NDTV Dr Alok Gupta, director Lyf Hospital in Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram, said, “We don’t have vaccine stock since Monday. We could vaccinate only 50 people on Monday instead of the usual 200. We have stopped vaccinations since then. There’s no clarity on when the next stock will come. We are willing to vaccinate but no stock is being sent from the government. People with pre-booked slots are turning up for vaccination and are arguing with us after being told about the unavailability (of vaccines).”

After Maharashtra, Rajasthan on Friday flagged vaccine shortage and asked for ‘immediate’ supply of doses. Stating that the vaccines will run out of stock in the state in two days, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting for another 30 lakh doses.

According to the Centre over 34.73 lakh  Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered across the country till 8 P.M on April 8. This they say has taken the 

cumulative number of vaccine doses administered over 9.40 crore now. Those vaccinated include Healthcare Workers (HCWs), Frontline Workers (FLWs), citizens over 45 years of age, it also includes those who have been given the second dose.

Prime Minister, Narendra Modi meanwhile has asked that states should now “join webinars organized by AIIMs, Delhi every Tuesday and Friday.” Meanwhile, on Friday, India reported 1,31,968 Covid-19 cases and 780 deaths in the 24 hours. 

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