COVID-19: Chaos at vaccination centres in Ahmedabad due to crowding amid short supply

Ahmedabad, Jun 30 (PTI) Chaotic scenes were witnessed at several COVID-19 inoculation centres in Ahmedabad on Wednesday as people turned up in large numbers to take the jabs amid short supply of vaccines in the Gujarat city.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) struggled to meet its target of vaccinating one lakh people per day due to less number of vaccines supplied to it, officials said.

At many vaccination centres in Ahmedabad, especially in the city's eastern parts, people queued up since early morning to avail tokens for vaccination which were being distributed in limited numbers. Many centres even put up boards saying 'Covishield' vaccine was not available.

A beneficiary at Bodakdev urban health centre here said, "I came early in the morning so that I could get a token for the vaccine. They gave tokens to only 100 people. I came for the second day today and was fortunate to get the token." Long queues were also seen at other vaccination centres in localities like Khokhra, Amraiwari, Vastral, with people turning up since early morning to get vaccinated.

The AMC on June 20 said it had set a target of vaccinating one lakh people per day, after the state government launched the facility of spot registration.

However, from June 21 to 29, it failed to even cross the 50,000-mark, officials said.

As per the vaccination data shared by the AMC, on June 21, 38,311 people were vaccinated in the city. The vaccination figures for the next eight days were 39,541, 41,887, 41,390, 33,355, 27,509, 20,158, 22,506, and 25,289.

AMC's medical officer Bhavin Solanki said, "We are getting less supply of vaccines, but we are vaccinating people depending upon the supply, that varies every day. Like yesterday, we received 35,000 doses. Some days we receive 20,000 doses, or even 13,000 doses." A similar situation was witnessed at some centres in Rajkot.

People complained of irregularities and lack of a proper system for vaccination due to which they were unable to get inoculated.

In Sabarkantha, several centres put up boards saying no vaccination will be carried out until they receive supply of vaccines.

The Gujarat government on Tuesday said 40 per cent of the eligible population in the state has already received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

The COVID-19 vaccination drive was rolled out in Gujarat along with other states on January 16 this year. From May 1, Gujarat launched the drive to vaccinate people in the age group of 18-44 years in phases before expanding it across the state.

On Tuesday, Gujarat reported 93 new COVID-19 cases, the second straight day of under-100 daily count, taking the coronavirus tally to 8,23,433, while 326 patients recovered from the infection, as per the state health department. PTI KA GK GK