No shortage of Covid-19 shots in India: Harsh Vardhan

A day after tussle with states over claims of deficit of covid-19 vaccines, Union health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday maintained that there is no shortage of shots in India. “All the claims of states are baseless and centre is supplying vaccines to all states equitably irrespective of the ruling party. The central government is working very hard in controlling the pandemic and speeding up the nationwide covid-19 vaccination program and states should support it instead of playing politics,” Harsh Vardhan told Mint. “Whichever states are reporting to us about shortage we are supplying the adequate vaccines without delay,” he said.

Reports of vaccine shortage came from various states majorly from Maharashtra. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that the objective is to vaccinate about 1.77 crore people in the priority group and for these, 40 lakh vaccines should be supplied every week.

“So far, the state has received 1.6 crore doses. To date, 92 to 95 lakh doses have been administered. At present, Maharashtra has very few stocks and some centers are closed. The central government has said that 17.43 lakh doses will be given after April 15, but this will hamper the vaccination drive. Therefore, full delivery should be done as per our demand,” said the chief minister reiterating his demand that everyone under the age of 25 needs vaccination.

Punjab, which is one of the states of “grave concern” in terms of cases and deaths due to covid-19, last week reached out to the centre regarding shortage of vaccines. “Last week, we told the centre that we will be running short of vaccines this week. However, the centre has provided us the vaccines, we still need more to vaccinate our population considering the rise in cases. We have also proposed the centre to start vaccinating all adults,” said a senior official in Punjab government.

Uttar Pradesh government which is also grappling with a rising burden of covid-19 and has imposed partial lockdown is expected to get more vaccines by the end of this week. “We would be getting vaccines on 10th of April and we have sufficient quantity up to that,” said Alok Kumar, secretary to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath. However, some private hospitals functioning as covid vaccination centres have stopped vaccinations owing to short supply of vaccine.

“We started covid-19 vaccinations since 1st March 2021. Since last one week, we don’t have the vaccines. We were immunising 200 persons but after the vaccine stock started exhausting, we could only vaccinate 50 persons. Currently we have stopped covid-19 vaccinations,’ said Dr Alok Gupta, director of Lyf hospital in Ghaziabad.

Gupta said that they are planning to request the government to arrange for supply from Delhi being into NCR as the vaccines are currently coming from Meerut and Lucknow which not only increases the chance of delayed and wastage. Several private hospital chains in NCR are reporting shortage of vaccines while Delhi hospitals are also running with low stocks.

Meanwhile the government is also working on speeding up the vaccination processes digitally. “Supply of vaccine, capacity to vaccinate and demand for the vaccine are crucial determinants. Vaccination aims to cover people who need the vaccine and not those who want it with the responsibility of state government and local authorities to prevent vaccine wastage,” said Sharma. Ram Sewak Sharma, Chairman of Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to combat covid-19 and member, National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration (NEGVAC) of covid-19.

“The change in the Co-WIN digital platform from the supply-driven response in the initial phase of vaccination of frontline workers and healthcare workers to now being demand driven since March 2021, where the citizen can register and book an appointment schedule. This change in digital system delivery is requisite for accelerating the speed of COVID- Vaccination in the country,” said Sharma during a dialogue in Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI).

The government is also working towards developing a system of globally valid digital vaccination certificates. “The World Health Organization (WHO) is working on a standard which is called as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). They are designing and working on the format of the digital certificate including various aspects that a digital certificate should contain and digital verifiability of same. India since the beginning has aligned to it. As soon as they come up with the standard, we will be in full compliance with FHRI standard. So, the digital certificate issued by India will be valid everywhere,” said Sharma.

India’s daily new cases continue to rise. 1,31,968 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours. Ten States including Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Rajasthan have shown a rise in the COVID daily new cases. 83.29% of the new cases are reported from these 10 states.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 56,286. It is followed by Chhattisgarh with 10,652 while Uttar Pradesh reported 8,474 new cases. India’s total Active Caseload has reached 9,79,608. It now comprises 7.50% of the country's total Positive Cases. A net incline of 69,289 cases recorded from the total active caseload in the last 24 hours.

The five states of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradeshand Kerala cumulatively account for 73.24% of India’s total active cases. Maharashtra alone accounts for53.84% of the total active caseload of the country, the union health ministry data showed. 780 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. Ten States account for 92.82% of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (376). Chhattisgarh follows with 94 daily deaths, according to union health ministry data.