Limited stocks in state to affect vaccine drive

Ranchi: Operating on a limited stock of Covishield vaccines provided by the state health department a day earlier, the vaccination sites across Ranchi struggled to manage the serpentine queues of beneficiaries as on Tuesday.
It was a tightrope walk for the health workers manning the city’s 19 session sites which had opened for inoculating the urban beneficiaries. Braving the scorching sun and bouts of rain, beneficiaries of all age groups above 18 years queued outside for their jabs.
With the district having little or no stock of Covaxin, a large chunk of beneficiaries who were due for their second doses were turned away. With only 22,000 doses of Covishield, it was a tough ask for the health workers to ration the doses between beneficiaries who were due for their second dose and those who had turned up for their first.
“Most session sites operated on first-come-first-serve basis,” a senior official in the district health services said.
Septuagenarian Manoj Kumar, a resident of Dhurwa’s Sector 3 area, had turned up with his wife, Sarla Devi, at the HEC wellness center for their second doses of Covishield. “We had to wait for more than an hour to get our doses,” Manoj said. Laxman Xalxo, who arrived at the government middle school campus in Doranda’s BMP1 campus, was turned away. “I was told that due to shortage of vaccines, only first doses were being given. I had gone there to get my second dose,” Xalxo said.
Ranchi civil surgeon Dr Vinod Kumar hinted that the crisis for vaccines will prevail on Wednesday. “We had received 22,000 doses of Covishield on Monday, of which 21,500 doses had been distributed for vaccinations on Tuesday. We will not be getting any fresh batch of Covishield today. We are due to get 2,500 doses of Covaxin tomorrow. So, the vaccination will take place consisting the Covaxin doses and the left over stock of Covishield at the session sites,” Kumar added.
The state health department on Tuesday said it has distributed 4 lakh doses of Covaxin among 24 districts. Ranchi was allotted 3,400 doses, the highest, followed by Dhanbad at 2,900. The state has a daily target of vaccinating 1.18 lakh people while it had 3.52 lakh doses, enough to last less than three days, the department claimed.