Bhubaneswar: Marred by the massive shortage of COVID-19 vaccination doses, the state health department Tuesday was forced to close down around 77 per cent of the vaccine centres across the state.
Moreover, the vaccination drive was totally suspended in 11 districts of Odisha. Not even a single dose was given in these districts. The districts where the drive was totally suspended included Bhadrak, Boudh, Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Jajpur, Jharsuguda, Koraput, Nayagarh, Puri, Sambalpur and Sonepur.
There were also some districts where vaccination was abysmally poor. They included Kendrapara (one session), Keonjhar (two sessions), Balasore (three sessions) and Jagatsinghpur (two sessions).
The state government said till date a total of 45,85,049 persons have been vaccinated in the state including healthcare workers, frontline workers, elderly and people above 45 years. However, the state government officials expressed helplessness when it came to supply of vaccines. The government had been putting the onus on the Union government for the short supply.
“The state government is suffering from Covisheild shortage. We had demanded 25 lakh vaccine doses for the state but have received only 2.7 lakh Monday. Due to lack of supply we are unable to ensure proper planning of the vaccine drive,” Bijay Panigrahi, State Health and Family Welfare Director, said.
He added that the vaccination drive is one of the ways to prevent the spread of the disease but there are other ongoing works by the government which can help in reducing the cases in the state. The official said that the main concern for the state government now is the shortage of Covishield which comes to the state in fragmented consignments that last only for 2-3 days. The government wants a large stock to plan the drive for almost 10 days in advance.
The state government again wrote a letter to the Centre seeking more vaccine doses from the state. It apprised the Centre about the present condition of the vaccine shortage in Odisha. Slowly more and more vaccine centres in the state have closed down for the day, owing to the shortage of vaccines. Beneficiaries going to vaccine centres in many parts of the state were seen coming back back without vaccine.