Assam fails to achieve target of vaccinating 30 lakh people | Reason shortage of vaccines

Guwahati, July 1 (NKTV): As informed by a Senior Health Official on Thursday, the Government of Assam could vaccinate only 16.63 lakh people in the past 10 days against the target of inoculating 30 lakh people set by Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma. The reason behind this is a massive shortage of Covid-19 vaccines, said the official.

As per NHM data, a total of 16,63,405 people were inoculated across the state from June 21 to June 30. This figure is way below the ambitious 30-lakh target set during Sarma’s meeting with all the stakeholders of the districts on June 19.

“This is a part of our Enhanced Immunisation Drive. From June 21, we shall be targeting three lakh vaccinations daily till June 30” CM Sarma had said in a press meet earlier.

It may be mentioned here that the government could touch the daily target of three lakh vaccines only on two days ,i.e., June 21 (3,30,667) and June 23 (3,60,315).

The state government could vaccinate more than two lakh people on one day, one lakh on four days and less than one lakh on three days, a compilation of the bulletins showed.

The Health Department even witnessed one of the lowest vaccination figures till now – 14,551 doses on June 30.

The administration vaccinated 3,30,667 people on June 21, 2,84,643 on June 22, 3,60,315 on June 23, 1,79,595 on June 24, 1,66,934 on June 25, 1,52,956 on June 26, 19,924 on June 27, 1,08,623 on June 28, 45,197 on June 29 and 14,551 on June 30.

NHM Mission Director Lakshmanan S told PTI that the supply of Covid-19 vaccines dropped after three days of commencement of the Enhanced Immunisation Drive on June 21, leading to a lower number of vaccinations. “During the first three days, we had enough vaccines and inoculated more than 9.75 lakh people. However, the numbers went down as we did not get enough supplies” he said.

Initially, there was a short supply of only Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, but later the availability of Covishield by the Serum Institute of India also became an issue, Lakshmanan said.

“Yesterday, we got six lakh doses of Covishield. We immediately distributed these to the districts. So, you will see the vaccination numbers rising again in the next three days. However, we do not have any idea when we will get the next supply in the coming 15 days” he said.

Inputs from PTI