Stocks dry up, vax drive in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka stalls

JAIPUR/BENGALURU/RANCHI: The nationwide Covid vaccination drive has been halted or severely slowed down in at least three states - Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka - as they have run out of stocks.
In Jaipur, almost all government vaccination centres remained closed for the second consecutive day on Tuesday. The situation was the same in several other districts across Rajasthan.
Rajasthan is one of the leading states in vaccination and has set up facilities to administer 15 lakh doses daily. However, the state received only 60,000 doses of Covaxin on Tuesday, a day after it received two lakh jabs. Chief minister Ashok Gehlot, said only if the Centre provides doses regularly, people of the state will get vaccinated on time and the risk of third wave will disappear.
The drive came to an unexpected halt in the Chhattisgarh capital Ranchi on Tuesday after most vaccination sites run out of both Covishield and Covaxin doses. With most districts also running out of stocks, the state-wide drive will stop from Wednesday, health officials said.
As of Monday evening, the state had just a little over 82,000 doses for all its 24 districts. The next consignment from the Centre is due to arrive on July 2. Ranchi civil surgeon Dr Vinod Kumar said, "Barring four workplace vaccination sites, we were unable to carry out the drive at most of our session sites owing to lack of doses. The doses are allotted to us on a daily basis by the state health department and there was no allotment today. Since we do not have any stock now, we cannot carry out vaccinations on Wednesday."
Though Jharkhand has been allotted 24 lakh vaccine doses for July, it will receive a little over nine lakh doses between July 1 and July 15. The state is vaccinating a little over one lakh beneficiaries daily.
In Karnataka, the vaccination drive slowed down due to short supply of doses and this has nixed the government's plan to cover at least 80% of the adult population by October when the predicted third wave is expected to hit.
The state set a record by administering 11.6 lakh doses on June 21. In Bengaluru, BBMP administered 1.74 lakh doses, of which 1.64 lakh were the first jab. However, there was a sharp decline the next day with state and city recording only 3.95 lakh and 43,901 doses, respectively.