Centre junks Rajasthan’s vaccine shortage claim, says it is monitoring supply

Responding to an SOS by Rajasthan government about limited availability of vaccine shots, the Centre on Tuesday (March 9) said “there is no shortage of COVID-19 vaccine with the state at present”.

Earlier, Rajasthan Health Minister Dr Raghu Sharma had sent an SOS to the Centre, asking for more stocks since it was left with only 5.85 lakh doses that would last for the next two days. To tide over the crisis, the state health machinery said it was administering doses only to those who were due for the second shot.

“We have vaccines for three days. If the vaccines don’t reach us… we asked for 60 lakh vaccines needed in March alone to continue the drive as is. If we don’t get vaccines, the drive could stop mid-way… If we don’t have the stock, how will the drive run?” Sharma told NDTV.

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The Union Health Ministry refuted Sharma’s claims. “Rajasthan has been supplied 37.61 lakh doses and has consumed only 24.28 lakh doses till yesterday night (March 8). The Union government is regularly monitoring availability of vaccine supply in all states and UTs (union territories), and providing the doses as per their requirement and consumption pattern,” the Ministry responded.

Rajasthan has a total of 67 lakh beneficiaries in phase II of the vaccination drive which started on March 1. About 30 lakh doses have been given since January 16, the day the nationwide campaign started. Sharma said, of them, 2.15 lakh doses were administered to army personnel.

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Dr Sharma said Rajasthan will need 136 lakh jabs in the days to come. In March, the state plans to vaccinate 60 lakh people.

On Monday (March 8), 179 fresh COVID cases were reported, taking the state’s total tally to 3,21,711.