New Delhi: The importance of vaccination can’t be over-emphasized at a time when the daily caseload of coronavirus positive patients is growing by leaps and bounds, and approaching 4 lakh per day.
Even as the Union Health ministry is taking pride at the pace of vaccination in India – quickest to administer 100 million, 120 million doses in the world – the government is realizing that inoculation process has to be quickened up significantly.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself reiterated on Saturday the need for increased vaccination so that India can overcome the crisis it faces amid the alarming second wave of the pandemic.
But the moot question is, does India have enough supply of the vaccine to cater to its needs? Especially since the government announced recently that anyone above the age of 18 will be eligible to get the vaccine from May 1.
The answer, sadly, is ‘no’.
Even before vaccination was made open for those above 45 from April 1, several states have been complaining of a shortage of stocks and writing to the Centre for larger consignments of Covishield and Covaxin. Whatever they are sending is not lasting beyond a day or two, at the most.
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Odisha is one of the affected states, and is struggling to meet demand for vaccination. A number of vaccination sites — including those in some of the state’s COVID hotspots — have run dry over the past few weeks and forced to halt vaccination. Naturally, the inoculation process has slowed down in the state.
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In neighbouring West Bengal, people have been queueing up since 5 am at several vaccination centres to get their first or second jab. Yet, when their turn is coming to collect the ‘token’, vaccines have been exhausted.
Indian manufacturers Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech are trying to ramp up production, but that is not going to be enough to bridge the demand-supply gap. The government needs to expedite the process of importing vaccines like Sputnik V – which has been okayed – and others like Pfizer, Moderna etc. Sooner the better, because come May 1, the demand is going to skyrocket.
