Ranchi runs out of vax, state to shut drive from today

Ranchi: The vaccination drive against the Covid-19 virus came to an unexpected halt in the city on Tuesday after most session 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.
The drive also received a jolt in Bokaro after all 62 session sites, barring four, ran out of vaccine. The district health department said the drive would remain suspended till fresh stocks arrive from the state headquarters. Bokaro civil surgeon Dr A K Pathak said, “Of the 64 vaccination centres across the district, only four-five remained functional with limited stocks. Their stock has also exhausted today (Tuesday) and will remain closed from Wednesday till the fresh stock arrives.”
In the capital city, most sites under the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) limits ran out of stocks.
Talking to TOI, Ranchi civil surgeon Dr Vinod Kumar said, “Barring four workplace vaccination sites – Project Building, Nepal House, Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha and Jharkhand High Court – 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.”
According to health department officials, the drive was curtailed to just eight sites in the urban limits of Ranchi on Tuesday with the majority of functional sites being at workplaces and mobile vaccination vans. As a result, designated session sites like Ranchi district hospital, Doranda CHC, IMA Ranchi office, Red Cross building witnessed long queues of angry beneficiaries, who returned home without getting the jabs after waiting for hours.
Manoranjan Kumar, a 30-year-old Doranda resident who was in a queue at the district hospital, said, “I am waiting here since 9 am. No one from the health department officials came out to inform us on when we will get our doses,”
Satish Kumar, an employee at the Nepal House, had taken his wife and children for vaccination but had to return empty-handed. “Since it was a workplace vaccination, I took my wife for her second dose. However, the health workers turned us back saying that owing to shortage of doses, only first doses will be administered to Nepal House employees and not their kin,” Kumar said.
Vaccine shortage also gripped all districts of the state on Tuesday. 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. “We have been told that the vaccine will only be available after the health department receives six lakh doses of Covishield on July 2,” a health official in Lohardaga said.
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. However, the state is vaccinating a little over one lakh beneficiaries daily.
“As of Tuesday evening, we do not have enough vaccines to carry out the drive on Wednesday. We have reached out to the Centre and requested it to make immediate arrangements so that the vaccination drive does not come to a halt in the state,” Siddharth Tripathy, the officer on special duty in the state health department, said.