Delhi runs out of Covishield, several vaccine centres shut today

Several government-run vaccination centres in Delhi are closed on Tuesday as the city has run out of Covishield vaccine stock, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Monday. Earlier on Monday, only 36,310 vaccine doses could be administered in Delhi till 10 pm as opposed to around 1.5 lakh of daily vaccine doses being administered on an average before.

Taking to Twitter, Sisodia said, "Vaccines have run out in Delhi again. The central government gives vaccines for a day or two, then we have to keep the vaccine centres closed for several days. Why is our country's vaccine programme faltering even after so many days?" while sharing a report on the shortage of vaccines.

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Delhi has repeatedly reported a shortage of vaccine doses, with many centres remaining shut for days. Moreover, government data showed on Monday, a decline in average daily inoculation since June 21, as the Covid-19 vaccine drive was opened to everyone above 18 years of age.

As per data available on the Co-WIN platform, an average of 61.14 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines was administered daily in the last week of June which dropped to 41.92 lakh in the first few days of July. Between July 5 and 11, the daily average vaccine doses further dipped to 34.32 lakh doses.

Not just Delhi, several other states have flagged an acute shortage in Covid-19 vaccine supply over the past several days, crippling the inoculation drive. Maharashtra and Odisha have also raised the issue of vaccine shortage. The cumulative number of vaccine doses administered in India till now has reached 37.73 crore under the nationwide vaccination drive.

The centre plans to inoculate the entire adult population in India by the end of December this year.

(Edited by Rupashree Ravi)

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