Bhubaneswar: Around 900 vaccination centres across the state were closed down Sunday denying citizens of the facility to get inoculated against COVID-19 even as India started its four-day special vaccination drive “Tika Utsav” announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
These centres were officially closed down owing to the lack of Covidshield vaccine doses. According to reports, the state government had sought 25 lakh doses of vaccines from the Union Health Ministry, which despatched only 2.5 lakh Covishield Saturday. As a result, many vaccination centres had to be shut down Sunday.
Bijay Panigrahi, Director, Health and Family Welfare said, “Vaccination was undertaken at 579 centres Sunday, while 900 centres were shut down owing to shortage of vaccines. In most districts of Odisha, we will run out of vaccine stocks by Monday, while only few districts can continue the vaccination drive. The inoculation drive can be continued smoothly only if we receive more vaccines from the Centre,” he said.
The official said that Odisha government received 2.50 lakh doses of Covidshield from the Centre Saturday against its demand for 25 lakh doses. “We distributed the vaccine doses to the districts across the state. Major part of the supplies was sent to districts where the COVID-19 caseload is higher,” Panigrahi clarified.
“We observed the ‘Tika Utsav’ Sunday to create awareness among the people on getting vaccinated. On this occasion special efforts were made to vaccinate people above 45 years and also ensure zero wastage of the vaccines. In our state we are successful in maintaining least wastage of vaccines,” he said.
When asked about some vaccination centres refusing vaccinations, he said, “No vaccine centre can refuse vaccination to an eligible candidate but each centre has a fixed capacity over which they cannot vaccinate people. In fact, the COWIN website too will not accept it. So if a vaccine centre reaches that level, despite demands it can refuse to entertain vaccination on that particular day.”
The Health Department, till the time of writing this report, was analysing the vaccine availability data but claimed that the vaccination drive is likely to be halted completely Monday in several districts of Odisha due to shortage of vaccines.