Supply crunch hits Noida's 'mega vax drive' on day one

Noida: While the shortage of vaccine still continues in both Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad, the mega vaccination drive planned from Thursday was postponed in both districts till the required vaccine does not arrive.

The health minister of Uttar Pradesh, Jai Pratap Singh was supposed to launch the drive but the event at Bisrakh was cancelled. However, he visited Noida on Thursday but inaugurated some infrastructure projects and Covid medicine kits for children below 12 years of age.

A senior officer from the health department said that the drive is not likely to start before Monday. While nearly one lakh doses have been assigned for the Meerut division, the vaccine stock is yet to reach districts forcing them to postpone vaccine drives.

In Gautam Buddh Nagar, nearly 8,000 vaccines are available with the health department while in Ghaziabad just above 9,000 vaccines are available for Friday. The vaccine stock is not even enough to complete the daily target set for both the districts leaving people to go for paid vaccines.

Noida's Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Deepak Ohrie, said that for now, they are only giving vaccines to people who are coming to take their first dose. "Since the vaccine stock is limited with us, we have decided to give the first dose of vaccine to people on priority. Those who have booked their first dose of vaccine slots online will be given vaccines. The first dose vaccination shall continue in upcoming days as well," said Dr Ohrie.

As per an official, the vaccines are being administered at 38 centers across the district out of which Covaxin is available at only 7 vaccination centers.

There is chaos among people who are looking to get themselves vaccinated as people are being turned out from vaccination centers even after getting slots booked online.

Significantly, Thursday was not the first time Noida came face-to-face with the vaccine shortage. In fact, in the run-up to what was supposed to be a major vaccination scale-up, the district had already run out of vaccines and was temporarily shutting down centres.

According to one such order issued on June 28, the district administration had temporarily suspended Covishield vaccinations at Janpad Gautam Buddh Nagar. It had said those who had booked slots for vaccination on June 29 will now be vaccinated on July 5. The order, however, did not explicitly mention the reason for this.

It added that other vaccination centres would remain open and that from June 30, vaccinations would continue as per usual schedule.