‘Unused Covaxin doses in state to expire by the end of January’

KOLKATA: Thousands of Covaxin doses, which have been lying unused at the Bagbazar Central Medical stores, will expire by the end January as there is a poor demand for jabs ever since the Covid curve started flattening from November. This happens at a time when there is a threat from the new Omicron variant.

It was learnt that the Centre will supply new vials of Covid doses and the unused stock which will expire soon will be diverted. According to sources thousands of Covaxin stock expired in December. The CVCs in the state are hardly seeing any people coming for a third jab. Around 80,000 doses of Covaxin will be delivered to the state. The Bengal government had urged the Centre for fresh supply of Covid vaccine. Demand of Covid vaccination in Bengal has gone down with the people no longer interested to get a jab. This is because the daily Covid infection has gone below 20 in November last year.

According to Health department sources, Covishield stock was exhausted in December. The Centre has also not been sending Covid vaccines on a regular basis. On October 31, more than 1.22 lakh doses of Covaxin were sent off to Vijayawada by the state Health department.

State has so far administered 73,042,630 Covid first doses cumulatively while 64,962,265 second doses have been applied cumulatively so far in the state. The demand of Covid vaccination had gone up for the last time during July-August when the infection had shot up. The number of Covid patients getting admitted to the critical care units of various hospitals were on the rise in June. Covid booster dose demand doubled in private hospitals during that time. Incidentally, the State on Friday registered 3 new Covid cases.