Maharashtra city shuts 109 vaccination centres due to Covid vaccine shortage

As many as 109 vaccination centres remained shut in Maharashtra's Pune due to a shortage of Covid-19 vaccines, alleged Lok Sabha MP and Nationalist Congress Party leader Supriya Sule on Wednesday.

The NCP leader also alleged that several people had to return home without getting vaccinated.

In a tweet, Supriya Sule said, "Pune District vaccinated 55,539 persons in 391 vaccination centres today. Several thousand people went back without being vaccinated because the vaccines stock was exhausted."

"109 centres remained shut today because they had no stock of vaccines. Our momentum may be lost due to lack of stock, we remain determined to vaccinate every consenting person to save lives, to break the chain of infection and to get our economy back on its feet at the earliest," she tweeted.

"Requesting Hon. Dr Harsh Vardhan ji to kindly help us with the COVID 19 vaccines," the tweet further read.

This comes hours after Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope flagged the issue of fast-depleting stocks across the state - he said this would happen within three days - and requested the government for help.

Tope said that he had informed Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan about the dire situation.

"Today 14 lakh doses are available, which means there is only three days' stock. So every week we need 40 lakh doses that is if we vaccinate 5 lakh everyday," the Maharashtra Health Minister said.

The minister also informed Vardhan: "We don't have doses in most of our vaccination centres... sending people back... I have been asking you to supply vaccine to us."

No vaccine shortage, says Harsh Vardhan

However, Vardhan has alleged that Maharashtra was trying to cover its "failure" and spread panic among the people by demanding vaccination for all without first inoculating enough of the eligible beneficiaries.

The Union Health Minister also said that the allegations of vaccine shortage are utterly baseless and the states, including Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, need to improve the implementation of their testing and containment strategies and vaccination drive.

Vardhan said the "lackadaisical" attitude of the Maharashtra government has "singularly bogged down" the entire country's efforts to fight the virus.

Pune reports 10,907 new Covid-19 cases, 62 deaths

Meanwhile, the Pune district registered 10,907 new Covid-19 cases, 62 deaths and 7,832 recoveries in a span of 24 hours, according to the district health department on Wednesday.

With this, the total Covid-19 cases mounted to 6,04,037, including 84,526 active ones and 5,09,278 total recoveries. The death toll, however, rose to 10,402 including the new fatalities.

With 1,15,736 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, India recorded its daily highest spike on Wednesday.

With the surge, the total count of cases in India has reached 1,28,01,785.

The country reported 630 Covid-related deaths in a day, while the active number of cases stands at 8,43,473, the Union Health Ministry said on Wednesday. The cumulative death toll has mounted to 1,66,177.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst-affected state recording the highest number of daily cases in the country. The state reported 59,907 new Covid-19 cases and 322 deaths in the last 24 hours.