Over 900 sites closed in Odisha for COVID vaccine shortage

BHUBANESWAR: The vaccine crisis is far from over as the session sites in 10 districts were shut down due to non-availability of required doses on Wednesday. The drive was conducted at only 556 centres against 1476 on the last day of the ‘Tika Utsav’.

Health department sources said only 71,401 beneficiaries were administered vaccines against the target of over 2.5 lakh as 920 centres were closed across 30 districts. There was no vaccination in Boudh, Deogarh, Gajapati, Jajpur, Jharsuguda, Kandhamal, Kendrapara, Koraput, Nabarangpur and Sonepur. Eleven districts had run dry due to a shortage of vaccine on Tuesday.

The inoculation was badly affected in seven districts, including Keonjhar and Nayagarh, where only one centre each was open. Similarly, vaccination was conducted at two centres in Angul, three in Balangir, four in Jagatsinghpur and five each in Malkangiri and Rayagada. More than half of the centres in 13 districts were also closed.

Director (Family Welfare) Dr Bijay Panigrahi said above 60 per cent of the vaccination centres were closed during the four-day of Tika Utsav. “Had the vaccine supply been as per the requirement, we could have achieved more than 60 per cent of the target of 1.16 crore,” he said.

Vaccination status

State has 1.74L doses of Covishield and 2.49L doses of Covaxin in stock
50,79,650 doses received so far
46,56,450 doses have been administered
95 pc of healthcare workers and 86 pc frontline workers have received the first doses