COVID-19 vaccine shortage hits Indian capital, several states

NEW DELHI -- The Indian capital city Delhi and several others states have claimed their ongoing COVID-19 vaccination programme has been affected by a shortage of vaccine stocks.

According to officials, several government-run vaccination centers in Delhi will remain closed on Tuesday because the city has exhausted its Covishield vaccine stock.

"Vaccines have run out in Delhi again. The federal government gives vaccines for a day or two, then we have to keep the vaccine centers closed for several days. Why is our country's vaccine programme faltering even after so many days?" Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday wrote on social media while sharing a news report on the shortage of vaccines.

Reports said on Monday that only 36,310 COVID-19 vaccine doses could be administered in Delhi against around 150,000 daily vaccine doses being administered on average earlier.

Over the past few days, several states have flagged an acute shortage in COVID-19 vaccine supply, affecting their inoculation drive.

Maharashtra state's local health minister Rajesh Tope was quoted by a local news agency as saying that they have the capacity to vaccinate 1.5 million people daily, but as of now, only 200,000 to 300,000 people are being inoculated due to a shortage of stock.

In Odisha state, the inoculation drive has been stopped in 24 out of 30 districts with state health secretary P K Mohapatra telling media that the next consignment of the Covishield vaccine was expected to arrive in the state on July 15.

Meanwhile, the federal government has refuted claims of COVID-19 vaccine shortage and clarified that all states are informed well in advance about the number of vaccines to be sent to them.

"It is clarified that all states are being informed much in advance about the doses that will be available during the month of July 2021, including the supply to private hospitals. The states have been advised to plan their COVID-19 vaccination sessions based on the availability of the vaccines," the federal health ministry said last week in a statement.

On Tuesday morning the health ministry said so far over 381 million doses have been administered across the country.

The ministry however does not give the population-wise break up of how many have received a single dose and how many were given the required two doses.

The Indian government aims to vaccinate the entire population by the end of this year.

Experts said India needs to administer 10 million doses a day to achieve its aim of inoculating the adult population by December.