Chidambaram counters Centre's 'no vaccine shortage' claim; cites stalled drive in Delhi

Tearing into the Centre's vaccination strategy, ex-Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday, questioned why Delhi and Telangana had stopped the vaccination of 18-44 yr olds if there was 'no vaccine shortage'. Countering Centre's claims that 1.6 crore doses of Corona vaccines are available with States, the Congress leader, asked then why were daily vaccinations declining? Lamenting at the Centre-Delhi govt disconnect, he asked why the Union Health Minister could not meet the Delhi CM and sort out their opposing claims of vaccination in the national capital.

Chidambaram lambasts Centre's 'no vaccine shortage' claim

Delhi halts 18-44 vaccination

The inoculation drive for the 18-44 age group came to a halt in Delhi on Saturday due to a shortage of vaccines, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal saying it will take 30 months to vaccinate people in this category here if the supply crisis continues. The chief minister also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to ensure an immediate supply of jabs and increase the quota for Delhi. As the country faces a shortage of vaccine, Kejriwal gave four suggestions to Modi, including procurement of vaccines from foreign manufacturers and inviting firms for production in India. Delhi requires 80 lakh doses a month to vaccinate all people in three months, claims Kejriwal.

India to manufacture 216 crore doses in Aug-Dec

Last week, the Union Health Ministry announced that the nation would manufacture 216 crore doses of COVID vaccines in India for the Indians between August to December 2021. The 216 crore doses include 75 crore doses of Covishield, 55 crore doses of Covaxin, 30 crore doses of Bio E Sub Vaccine, 20 crore doses of SII's Novavax, 15.6 crore doses of Russia's Sputnik amongst others. With this addition, India would have over 2 billion doses of COVID vaccines available in the coming months. The government is in touch with Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J manufacturers asking them if they wanted to supply vaccines to India. The govt has also increased the gap between two doses of Covishield to 12-16 weeks but made no change for Covaxin dosage interval.

India's vaccine shortage crisis

India's vaccination drive has hit a roadblock due to shortage of supplies. On April 19, Centre relaxed the age bar for vaccination from May 1 onwards allowing 18+ to be vaccinated, and states to procure doses from manufacturers directly and approved an advance payment of Rs 4,567.50 crores to Serum Institute of India (SII) & Bharat Biotech (BBL) to ramp up vaccine production. Soon enough, most state governments placed lakhs of orders with the two vaccine manufacturers, but are yet to receive their orders. States like Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Jammu-Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Delhi have postponed their vaccination drive by two weeks atleast due to a shortage of vaccine doses. Both Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India (SII) have offered vaccines at RS 150/dose to Centre, but at Rs 300 and Rs 400 respectively to state governments.