Centre's policy responsible for shortage of vaccine doses: Docs

KOLKATA: Several city-based doctors have held Centre's policy responsible for the shortage of vaccine doses in the state. They said the Centre's ill-conceived plans had goofed up the entire immunisation process in the state.

After starting vaccination, various centers are now facing difficulties to meet the requirements. "The Centre has been exporting vaccines to other countries when there is a huge demand for the vaccines within the country. When the people of our state are unable to get vaccines, what's the point in sending them off to other countries," said Dr G Mukherjee, a senior pathologist. Bengal has successfully conducted 2 lakh doses per day on the number of occasions in the first half of March while in the latter half around 3 lakh vaccinations were conducted on a number of days.

The number could not be increased. On April 10, around 2,14,767 people were vaccinated across the state while on February 11, 53,922 people received vaccines. The State conducted around 2,44,560 vaccinations on April 12, around 1,13,710 doses on April 13, around 1,37,595 on April 16, around 1,24,710 on April 17, only 22,000 on April 18, around 2,00,876 on April 19.

Many of the Covid vaccination centers (CVC) exhausted their stocks. The vaccination programme in Bengal has slowed down due to inadequate supply of vaccines. The situation may be further complicated once the people above 18 start taking the jabs, doctors pointed out. According to sources, around 88,63,000 doses of Covishield have arrived in the state so far while 13,37,000 doses of Covaxin have come.

Bengal has so far received 10,200,000 doses of vaccines out of which around 87,00,000 doses of vaccines have been administered on people while around 15 lakh doses are still in hands. Sources said districts like Midnapore, Bankura, Purulia have stopped administering the first dose due to shortage of doses.