After Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh denies COVID-19 vaccine wastage

Madhya Pradesh has joined other states which have refuted the Centre's data claiming COVID-19 vaccine wastage. Earlier, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand - the two states which are not ruled by the BJP had denied that vaccines are being wasted. The Centre had claimed that vaccines are being wasted. Similar to the reasons of other states, Madhya Pradesh too has claimed that there might be data issues or lack of communication with the Health Ministry.

'There might be communication issues': MP Medical Education Minister 

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the state's Medical Education Minister Vishwas Sarang stated that the wastage as per the state government is less as compared to the Centre's data. In addition, he also asserted that there might have been communication issues between the two sides. Sarang told reporters that he had directed state officials to get in touch with the Health Ministry officials to get the data corrected. 

Madhya Pradesh became the first BJP-ruled state to deny vaccine wastage. Earlier, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand had rejected the claim. This comes after the Health Ministry's claim of wastage of COVID-19 vaccines by some states. The Centre also urged the states to keep the wastage below 1 per cent. The Centre had named some of the states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh. Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh. 

Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand deny COVID-19 vaccine wastage

However, the Chhattisgarh government responded by claiming that the Centre's data was incorrect. The state's Principal Secretary from the Health Department remarked that they had written to the Union Health Ministry and working with them to solve the issues. Similarly, Jharkhand CMO revealed that as per the vaccine availability, the wastage was only 4.65 per cent. In addition, they also claimed that vaccination data could not be fully updated to the central CoWIN platform due to technical issues.