Health minister accuses BJP-led Central government of not heeding to request of Jharkhand for vaccines
Banna Gupta writes to PM for Bharat Ratna award to scientists for developing indigenous vaccines in short time
Ranchi, June 30: Only Sadar Hospital at Khasmahal in Jamshedpur saw vaccination that too ended by noon as vaccination drive against Covid-19 came to a halt in most of the session sites in Jharkhand with stock of vaccine doses being exhausted.
Only few of the over 3,400 vaccination sites in Jharkhand carried out vaccination on Wednesday but soon exhausted the stock of nearly 35,000 doses of vaccines by noon.
State health minister and Congress MLA from Jamshedpur West, Banna Gupta blamed the delay in vaccine supply on the Union government.
“Most of the vaccination centres in the state could not administer doses as there is shortage of vaccines. It is all due to the ill planning of the Narendra Modi led Central government which has been regularly increasing the time span between two doses of vaccines from four weeks to six weeks, then 12 weeks and 16 weeks to hide the crisis in vaccine doses. Non-BJP states like Jharkhand are being ignored by the Centre and despite our request we are not being given vaccines,” alleged Banna Gupta.
The health minister said that they have been regularly writing to the Union health ministry to supply them adequate number of vaccines but are yet to get the vaccines in proper amount.
“We have negligible vaccine wastage (0.2 per cent) which is far below the national average but are not being given vaccine doses. I am personally requesting all the BJP MPs to request the Central government to provide adequate number of vaccine doses. I am prepared to even touch feet of BJP leaders if they can ensure proper number of vaccine doses for the people of Jharkhand from the Central government, “said Banna Gupta addressing reporters at state Congress office in Ranchi on Wednesday.
The health minister also informed that he has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting for awarding Bharat Ratna during Independence Day to the scientists who helped in making indigenous vaccines for Covid in short span of time which is crucial for the country’s fight against the Covid pandemic.
Meanwhile most of the vaccination sites in Jamshedpur were closed down.
“Vaccination could be carried out till noon at only Sadar Hospital in Khasmahal and at few places by the bike ambulances. It also ran out of stock by noon. We are awaiting a fresh stock of vaccine to start our vaccination drive with full steam from Thursday,” said East Singhbhum civil surgeon Dr A. K Lal.
Ranchi civil surgeon, Dr Vinod Kumar also admitted of shortage of vaccine doses.
“There is an acute shortage of vaccine doses. On Wednesday vaccination was carried out at only four sites and that too was exhausted within a few hours,” said Dr Vinod Kumar.
By end of Tuesday, vaccination centres across the state had utilized almost the entire stock available.
According to a state health department report on Tuesday evening, the first dose of vaccine was administered to 36,342 residents and the second dose to 10,724 residents.
As per data with the National Health Mission (NHM), Jharkhand was left with only 82,652 doses before vaccination centres opened on Tuesday. The state is left with around 35,000 doses of vaccines, which may get used on Wednesday itself.
“The very few vaccine doses left were used up on Wednesday. We will resume vaccination of Jharkhand residents from Thursday with full steam as the Covaxin vaccine supplies reached us on Wednesday and are being distributed to all the districts on Wednesday itself. Districts are being informed on phone and letters will be issued shortly,” said state health department nodal officer information, education and communication (IEC) wing Siddharth Tripathi.
The state received 58590 doses of Covaxin vaccines on Wednesday afternoon and the allocation was done for all the 24 districts on Wednesday itself so that vaccines can begin from Thursday.
Significantly, the state has received 69,41,260 doses of vaccines and so far administered 68,30,995 doses while 11045 (0.2 per cent) were wasted.
The state has been administering over a lakh vaccines daily since the last few weeks after an intensive campaign was launched for vaccination drive earlier this month.