RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh is facing an ‘acute shortage’ of vaccine doses for 18 plus group and the vaccination rate dropped to 8,000 from 20,000 in past two days. The health officials said that the drive will remain affected for next few days.
Talking to TOI, Chhattisgarh vaccination drive’s nodal officer Dr Amar Singh Thakur said, “The quota for this May month has been exhausted and we are left with 40,000 doses of covishield and 4,000 doses of covaxin.
“We have received assurance of dispatch of new batch of vaccines in first week of June. The vaccination drive for 18-44 age will be hampered for next few days.”
Since the inception of vaccination drive for age group of 18-44 years old from May 1, as many as 7,60,141 people of 18-44 of age group have received first dose. Unlike other states, Chhattisgarh is operating the vaccination drive on their local website CGTEEKA, which is not linked with centre’s CoWIN app., as the state has fixed a ratio for APL, BPL and frontline categories.
Covaxin’s second dose is scheduled after a gap of 28 days and those who had received the dose on May 1 are ideally suppose to get second jab on May 29 but due to shortage, a lot of people will have to suffer delay by a week atleast.
However, state health officials assured that a gap of one week after 28 days will produce no side-effect on beneficiaries and second dose will be equally effective.
Pointing it out as a common phenomenon, state health officials said that since all states are dependent on two manufacturers for vaccines, this has mounted pressure on production due to which the drive might have to be halted for a few days. Chhattisgarh has received 1.50 lakh doses of Covaxin on May 1.
In first week of May, state government had paid around Rs 15 crore to Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute for procuring 75 lakh doses of Covid vaccines.
