Maharashtra: Pimpri-Chinchwad halt inoculation drive temporarily due to shortage of COVID vaccine
Earlier on Wednesday, the Maharashtra government had said that the state was running short of vaccines, especially in urban centres, and urged the Centre to send in additional stocks.
FollowPune's Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has temporarily stopped its inoculation drive for Friday due to the non-availability of Covid-19 vaccine doses.
“We have around 1,500 Covishield doses in stock. We also have around 10,000 doses of Covaxin, which have been kept in reserve for the second dose for beneficiaries,” PCMC commissioner Rajesh Patil said. There are 80 vaccination centres in the PCMC limits and 60% of those are run by the civic body.
The official notification issued by the Panvel Municipal Corporation read: "Vaccination drive temporarily halted in all government and private inoculation centres in Panvel, due to unavailability of #COVID19 vaccines. Centres will be reopened once vaccines are back in stock."
Earlier on Wednesday, the Maharashtra government had said that the state was running short of vaccines, especially in urban centres, and urged the Centre to send in additional stocks.
However, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday said Maharashtra has repeatedly failed to control the spread of the pandemic and now to divert attention from its failure, the government is complaining of vaccine shortage, which is a "baseless allegation".
The situation was grim across the state, with Yavatmal and Chandrapur districts in Vidarbha on Thursday joining Gondia and Amravati in closing down almost all inoculation centres. In Vasai-Virar, only second doses were given and others were turned away.
This comes in the light of Lok Sabha MP and Nationalist Congress Party leader Supriya Sule alleging that 109 vaccination centres remained shut in Maharashtra's Pune on Wednesday.
"Pune District vaccinated 55,539 persons in 391 vaccination centres today. Several thousand people went back without being vaccinated because the vaccines stock was exhausted," Sule wrote on Twitter.
"109 centres remained shut today because they had no stock of vaccines. Our momentum may be lost due to lack of stock, we remain determined to vaccinate every consenting person to save lives, to break the chain of infection and to get our economy back on its feet at the earliest," she added.
