Mansukh Mandaviya blames states for Covid-19 vaccine mismanagement; Health Ministry reviews vaccination at private centres

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday blamed the states for “mismanagement” in the Covid-19 inoculation drive and long queues at the vaccination centres, without explaining why the states are not being given more doses despite repeated requests.

Since the states had been informed thrice on the amount of doses they would receive in July, they should have planned the vaccination drive better, he argued. There is, however, no official word on the slump in vaccination being seen in the states.

Mandaviya said states were making “useless” statements to create panic on vaccine non-availability and denied reports of any such shortage. The minister, however, didn't share any data to back up such a claim that goes contrary to the ground situation prevailing in several states.

Read: Centre asks states to facilitate private vaccination centres in getting Covid jabs; expresses worry on PCVs' 'slow pace'

Since last week Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi and West Bengal had to shut many of their vaccination centres for the need of supply. In Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, there is a decline in average daily vaccinations since the high of the June 21-26 week.

On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin sought one crore additional doses from Prime Minister Narendra Modi arguing that the quantity the southern state had received was inadequate.

Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said the state needed a minimum of three crore vaccine doses per month to inoculate the entire eligible population at the earliest. The Covid-19 jab sessions were not conducted in at least 25 of Rajasthan's 33 districts on Monday due to vaccine shortage.

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Rajasthan Health Secretary Siddharth Maharaj said the state had only 10,000 doses on Monday because of which sessions could not be conducted in 25 districts of the state. On Monday night Rajasthan received eight lakh doses that were administered in the next two days.

Mahajan said Rajasthan demanded 1.5 crore vaccine doses for July, but the central government allocated only 65 lakh doses.

In his response, Mandaviya said 11.46 crore vaccine doses were available to the states and union territories in June 2021. This availability has been increased to 13.5 crore doses in the month of July. This includes 12 crore doses from the government and 1.5 crore doses for the private hospitals.

But private hospitals facing charges of poor performance on Covid-19 vaccination front, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan reviewed the slow pace of procurement and administration of vaccines by private hospitals, which according to the Centre, was a cause of serious worry.

The four key concerns are (1) private hospitals not placing the indent for their earmarked stock (2) not paying for the stock (3) not lifting the stock after the payment and (4) administering far less than their stock. On each of these points, the states have been asked to sort out the bottlenecks in consultation with the private hospitals.

“The states need to facilitate the vaccine procurement by the private vaccination centres. The states should review the status on a daily basis,” Bhushan said.