The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officially exhausted its stocks of Covaxin on Tuesday with those over 45 years struggling to get a second dose in the state for the past few days.
A BBMP official who refused to be named said, “The BBMP has only 80,000 doses left, not counting doses administered on Wednesday as these vials arrived yesterday. We need 20,000 to 30,000 vaccine doses a day at 151 centres. We exhausted the Covaxin stock on Tuesday.”
Health Minister K Sudhakar tweeted that Karnataka crossed one crore inoculations on Wednesday but made no mention of the shortage. The state has so far received 1,05,49,970 doses from the Centre and the state government has procured three lakh doses, he said.
As per the Co-WIN dashboard at 8.45 pm on Wednesday, so far 1,01,43,653 doses have been administered. This means the remaining stock is 4,06,317 doses. Chitradurga district has administered 2,50,553 doses so far till 8.50 pm on Wednesday. Kumaraswamy RM, District Immunisation Officer, told DH, “Yesterday, we received 14,000 doses. Per day, we need 10,000 to 11,000 doses on average for 192 centres. We have been allocated 3,100 Covaxin doses which we are told will come on Thursday.
“As many as 26,100 people got the first dose of Covaxin. We must plan the second dose. They finished their four-week gap three-four days back. We have to give it in phases.”
Jayashree ME, District Immunisation Officer, Bagalkot, said, “We distributed the 14,000 doses we received yesterday to all the taluks. But our Covaxin doses were exhausted four days back. The government says it will take four more days to come. Around 51,000 people are awaiting the second dose of Covaxin. We’ve been instructed to prioritise them.”
Even those who were administered Covishield are struggling to get the second dose. Srivatsa Parameshwar (54), a resident of Jayanagar told DH he had to visit a number of centres across the city over five days before securing the second dose of Covishield.
“Though Co-WIN portal gives an appointment for a second dose when you go to the vaccination centre, they say no stocks. BBMP centres have 100-200 people thronging there and they have stocks only for 60. Unless you stand in a queue at 7 am, you won’t get it, even as they open at 10 am. Many of them went back as they couldn’t get a second shot,” he said.