A healthcare worker fill a syringe with a dose of vaccine. File.
| Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR
Shortage of Covaxin and Covishield vaccines in New Delhi has forced shut almost all government-run vaccination centres, leaving many people unable to get free shots, multiple sources have told Today News 24.
The Delhi government-run facilities are facing the acute shortage as the government is yet to get a fresh stock of vaccines from the Centre, sources said. This is despite a scare of COVID-19 cases going up again and directions from the Centre and Delhi governments to ramp up administration of precautionary doses.
“Currently, none of the government-run vaccination centres in our district are working. We have run out of stocks of both the vaccines for the past five to six days. At the beginning of this month, we were running about seven to 10 vaccination centres on an average every day,” an official source said.
In at least three districts, all vaccination centres were shut on Tuesday, according to officials. Another source said the Delhi government has written to the Centre for stocks of both the vaccines, but they were yet to get a confirmation on when a fresh stock will be delivered.
“Today morning there were only about 40 doses, that is four vials of vaccines, in all the Delhi government vaccination centres in the city combined,” the source added.
On the other hand, the vaccines were available in multiple private hospitals in the city.
“We used to have around 10 centres a month back, but now all of them are shut as we do not have any stock of vaccines. All the centres will be shut today and we have no stock for tomorrow as well. The situation is the same in most of the districts,” another official said.
“We have been getting calls from people asking about vaccines and we are forced to tell them that we will restart the drive once we get the stock,” the official added.
On Thursday, after a review meeting of the COVID-19 situation, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal expressed concern about the low percentage of people who have taken the precautionary dose and said the Delhi government was thinking about doing a door-to-door vaccination drive so that more people will take the third dose.
“About 100% people have taken the first and second doses of the vaccine in Delhi. But only 24% of people have taken the precautionary dose.,” Mr. Kejriwal had said.
Dr. Jugal Kishore, Head of the Community Medicine Department at Central government-run Safdarjung Hospital, said the non availability of free vaccines will affect the poor.
“The poor will have to either pay for the vaccine at private facilities or not take the vaccine and lose out on the extra protection. I don’t know how many will pay ₹800 for the nasal vaccine at a private hospital,” he said.
Despite multiple attempts by Today News 24, the Delhi government spokesperson did not offer a comment.
