New Delhi: Amid BF.7 scare, several State governments appealed to the Centre to provide stocks of Covid vaccines so that they can immunize the eligible population with precautionary doses. As people in large numbers have started taking precautionary doses following the BF.7 scare, hospitals across the country have been witnessing a shortage of vaccines.
A senior official in the health ministry told ETV Bharat that States like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Kerala, and Odisha among others have reported a shortage of vaccines in both government and private hospitals. "Yes, many of the State governments have reported a shortage of vaccines," admitted Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Kandariyam Mandaviya.
Talking to ETV Bharat, Mandaviya said that for the time being his ministry will supply the excessive vaccines available in many states to those which are facing vaccine shortages. "We will assess the situation and accordingly we will take a call on the need of giving orders for more vaccines to the vaccine manufacturing companies," said Mandaviya.
He admitted that States are reporting a shortage of both vaccines-Covaxin and Covishield. As per government statistics available with ETV Bharat the present availability of both vaccines with State governments is 7,349,280--Maharashtra (1,693,380), Jharkhand (1,254,030), Rajasthan (9,74,380), Telangana (9,56,290) and Chhattisgarh (2,66,920)--are the top five States with maximum availability of Covid vaccines.
On the other hand, Goa, Mizoram, Odisha, Sikkim, Lakshadweep and A&N Islands have zero availability of Covid vaccines. "Vaccine stock data of private sector hospitals are non-verifiable and also have persistent data quality issues. Efforts have been made to correct and update the vaccine stock data at private hospitals without successful outcomes and therefore can not be used for critical analysis," the Health Ministry report in possession of this correspondent said.
As per records, States like Andhra Pradesh have 20,230 vaccines available in their stock, Assam has a stock of 2,46,110, Bihar 1,46,560, Chandigarh 4,790, Delhi 30, J&K 4,270, Ladakh 270, Manipur 1,960, Meghalaya 5,890, Punjab 48,660, Tripura 1,500. India has an estimated population of 939,039,000 above 18 years of age, who are eligible for the first dose, second dose and precautionary dose of Covid vaccines.
The total number of the eligible population of 12-14 years of age eligible for the first and second doses is 47,143,000. As per Co-WIN data, India has administered a total of 2,20,08,17,500 vaccine doses till date, including 1,02,71,84,263 first dose, 95,11,76,639 second dose and 22,24,56,598 precautionary dose.
Although scientific evidence till date has shown that the available Indian vaccines can fight all variants of Covid, Health Minister Mandaviya has said that the National Institute of Virology-Pune has isolated the BF.7 strain of Covid variant to ascertain the effectiveness of Indian vaccines on the new variant.
