Maharashtra Gets A Lifeline With 17 Lakh Doses Of COVID Vaccine As Politics Over It Continue

Maharashtra, the worst COVID-19 affected state in India, which is simultaneously battling an unprecedented outbreak and a shortage of preventive vaccines has been provided 17 lakh additional doses.

Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said the Center increased COVID-19 vaccine doses from 7 lakhs to 17 lakhs.

"I have just been informed that the Center increased COVID-19 vaccine doses from 7 lakhs to 17 lakhs. Even this is less because we need 40 lakh vaccine doses a week and 17 lakh doses are not enough," he said.

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Vaccine crunch?

Earlier on Wednesday, Maharashtra Health Minister had said the state is facing a COVID-19 vaccine crunch.

"Currently, we have 14 lakh vaccine doses which will get over in the next three days. We've urged for 40 lakh more vaccine doses per week. I'm not saying that the Center is not giving us vaccines but the speed of delivery of vaccines is slow," Tope had said.

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On Thursday Tope said the issues of COVID-19 vaccine and Remdesivir drug shortages before Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the virtual meet.

"We will raise four issues before the Prime Minister in today's video conference meet. The issues will be; Remdesivir supply and price control, supply of oxygen from nearby states to Maharashtra, shortage of vaccine dosages, and the ventilator operational support," Tope said.

Meanwhile, a central team has arrived at the BKC COVID-19 vaccination centre in Mumbai to assess the current situation in the city.

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The vaccine shortage in Maharashtra had forced many vaccination centres to shut or turn away recipients.

Lok Sabha MP and Nationalist Congress Party leader alleged that about 109 vaccination centres remained shut in Pune due to a shortage of Covid-19 vaccines.

109 centers remained shut today because they had no stock of vaccines.Our momentum may be lost due to lack of stock,we remain determined to vaccinate every consenting person to save lives,to break the chain of infection and to get our economy back on its feet at the earliest..2/3

¡ª Supriya Sule (@supriya_sule) April 7, 2021

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Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan who rejected the allegations of vaccine shortage termed it as utterly baseless and said that states, including Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, need to improve the implementation of their testing and containment strategies and vaccination drive.

He said the "lackadaisical" attitude of the Maharashtra government has "singularly bogged down" the entire country's efforts to fight the virus.