The drive to vaccinate citizens against COVID-19 has been a complicated one since it was opened up to the public, from demand outstripping available appointments to lack of stock when hesitancy took a back seat during the raging second wave of the pandemic. As it stands today, smaller hospitals are alleging a lack of vaccine stocks, while some others say demand has fallen with people preferring to get their shots at public hospitals for free.
Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes’ Association president H.M. Prasanna told The Hindu that there was a huge mismatch in vaccine stocks available. “In the private sector, while big chains have huge quantities of stocks and are unable to liquidate them, the smaller ones have no stock — not for the first dose or the second. The bigger hospitals are willing to share stocks with the smaller ones, but the transfer is unable to be carried out,” he said.
He also said the big hospitals were not getting enough people of late as most people were preferring to get vaccinated for free because of the price of vaccines available at private facilities. “While there are huge queues at government facilities, fewer than 100 people are going to the big hospitals. It has to do with the prices. Covaxin, for example, is very expensive. So except for the second dose, there is not much demand now. For the Sputnik vaccine, there is some craze,” he added.
Dr. Prasanna said this was not the case when doses were available at subsidised rates of around ₹250 earlier. “People won’t mind paying ₹250 to ₹300. But they will think before paying ₹750 or almost ₹1,500,” he said.
Prolonged wait
However, not everyone is terming this a dip in demand. A spokesperson for Manipal Hospitals said many people were still getting vaccinated. “It is the prolonged gap between doses of Covishield which may have caused a small dip. But people are coming in. In fact, there is demand for the Sputnik vaccine, especially from certain sectors such as scientists. Once the gap period between the first dose and the second is up, we are expecting to see more people by mid-July,” said the spokesperson. The gap between doses is 84 days.
More centres
Instances of low or no vaccine stocks have also been reported from government facilities, but officials have termed it temporary. “Covishield was not available on Thursday. The break for a day was probably due to supply chain issues. On the other hand, Covaxin was available, which was not easily available earlier,” said H.D.R. Radhakrishna, medical superintendent of Sir C.V. Raman Hospital.
Acknowledging that the number of people coming in may have gone down slightly, he reasoned that this was because far more vaccine facilities were available now, in addition to the longer gap between doses for Covishield. “During the first two months, almost 95% of people had gotten Covishield. Now 90% to 95% of people coming in are walk-ins, especially all those who have received the first dose. The rush is slightly less as the number of centres has grown by a huge number. People are going to vaccination centres closer to their homes,” he said.
From 600 to 700 people earlier, it has come down to 400 or so, he said, adding that the number of people would increase soon as many would be eligible for the second dose of Covidshield.