320 doses of COVID-19 vaccine missing from hospital in Jaipur

JAIPUR: At a time when Rajasthan and many other states are battling an acute shortage of vaccines,  320 doses of ‘Covaxin’ have gone missing from a hospital in Jaipur. An FIR has been registered about the theft at Kanwatia Hospital in the Shastri Nagar area of Jaipur.

According to the FIR and information from the local police, as many as 320 doses of Bharat Biotech's indigenously manufactured vaccine, COVAXIN, has gone missing from the cold storage of the Kanwatia Government hospital.

The hospital had received these doses on April 11 but when the hospital administration looked for the doses on April 12, they could not find a single jab of the 320 doses that were received.  

The SHO of the Shastri Nagar police station, Dilip Singh said they will use the CCTV footage of the cameras installed in the hospital to push their investigation forward.

The FIR was lodged after the hospital staff failed to locate the vaccine.

After a male nurse Hiralal Verma of the hospital filed the complaint about the missing vaccine at the Shastri Nagar police station, the probe has been handed over to Head constable Harnath Singh. The FIR has been filed against unidentified persons.

The police is taking a close look at the stock register of the Kanwatia Hospital and all staff members of the hospital are being interrogated. Meanwhile, the health department will also probe this case which has raised fears that the missing vaccine doses may have been sold in the black market.

Just last week, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi claiming that the stock of COVID-19 vaccine in the state will be finished in the next 2 days. Gehlot had also asked PM Modi to provide another 30 lakh doses to the state to prevent vaccine shortage in Rajasthan.