States to get 50% more Covid-19 vaccines in June; vaccination pace picks up in last week of May

The states and union territories are likely to get 50 per cent more Covid-19 vaccines in June than what they had received this month to further increase their vaccination coverage, which has picked up since the last week of May.

The Union Health Ministry on Sunday said it would supply 6.09 crore doses to the states while another 5.86 crore doses would be available for direct procurement by the states and private hospitals. Taken together, there would be nearly 12 crore doses of the three Covid-19 vaccines that can be administered in June.

This would be an improvement from around 8 crore doses that were available in May when the Centre supplied 4.03 crore doses and 3.9 crore doses were available to the states and private hospitals for direct purchase.

“Speeding up the vaccination rate is important and we must maintain the momentum. With three vaccines now available, we must be able to vaccinate more till production and procurement ramp up by July, with more vaccines getting regulatory clearance,” K Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India told DH.

As per official data, just about six crore doses were consumed till May 30 leaving behind nearly two crore unaccounted doses. There is no clarity on whether the states or private hospitals purchased the available doses as queries sent to the ministry elicited no response.

Read | Will be able to manufacture, supply 10 crore Covishield vaccine doses in June, SII tells Centre

Nevertheless, the plan to allocate 12 crore doses in June provides an opportunity to the states to double their vaccination coverage from administering nearly six crore doses in May, though there is an improvement at the fag end of the month.

Over the last week, India’s vaccination coverage has improved as more than 172 lakh shots were given in the last seven days, of which 30.35 lakh inoculations were carried out on Saturday. This is much more than 140 lakh plus jabs administered in the previous 10 days between May 14-23.

"High vaccine hesitancy in rural areas will pose a big challenge as there is a mistrust among people regarding the messages coming from the government. For the vaccination campaign to succeed, it is important to build trust. But unfortunately, we have a top-down communication approach so far,” noted Gagandeep Kang, professor at Christian Medical College, Vellore and one of India’s leading experts on vaccines.

The ministry would share the delivery schedule for June allocation 15-30 days in advance with the state in order to aid the state officials to ensure rational and judicious utilisation of allocated doses and minimise the vaccine wastage.

It would also help the states to know in advance about the quantum of free vaccine doses coming from the Centre and availability of the doses for direct procurement.