Vaccine Shortage Hits Pune’s Inoculation Drive

Pune, Maharashtra’s second-largest city after Mumbai, was inoculating around 25,000-27,000 people per day when it faced a shortage of vaccines. As a result, it has stopped vaccinating those aged above 45 years of age since May 1.

“We have received 5,000 doses of Covishield (vaccine) to vaccinate people in the age group of 18-44 years,” Dr. Ashish Bharati, health chief of Pune Municipal Corporation, told BloombergQuint over the phone on May 4. “We have activated two vaccine centres for the same, where we’re administering 350 doses each per day. Our target is to vaccinate 700 people per day in this age group.”

This comes at a time when as many as 3.57 lakh people tested positive for the virus across India and more than 3,000 deaths were recorded in the 24 hours till 8 a.m. on May 4, according to data from the Health Ministry, taking the total number of confirmed infections above 2 crore.

Vaccination Status For 18-44 Age Group

• May 1: 132 doses.
• May 2: 380.
• May 3: 665.

So far, the city has vaccinated around 8.4 lakh people, Dr. Bharati said. Out of these, around 7 lakh doses were Serum Institute of India Ltd.’s Covishield and the remaining Bharat Biotech International Ltd.’s Covaxin.

The civic body is following up with the state government over availability of new shots so that it can resume vaccinating people who are aged above 45 years, the official said, adding it will require around 80 lakh doses to administer two shots each to all eligible people.

The PMC recorded 3,003 new Covid-19 infections and 25 deaths on May 4.