The Union Health Ministry today came with its clarification that reports claiming Bharat Biotech is producing 6 crore Covaxin doses per month are false. Such reports are unfound on vaccine doses of Bharat Biotech having 6 crore doses is an error of comprehension. These reports are incorrect and are not supported by full information on the matter, as per the statement.
Amidst a huge shortage of vaccination doses are being faced by all states across the country. Unfortunately, the country is passing through a most difficult phase of the national crisis but some mischievous element spread the mill-run fake news/reports/videos/data on Covid and its management on a daily rather on an hourly basis to confuse the people of country and abroad.
With initial hiccups, the demand for the vaccination got a steep rise the government agencies could not cope up the surge in demand particularly among the youth from Age 18 to 45. Keeping in view the huge population of this country, it is not that easy to provide inoculation to the entire population within days, weeks or months. Even if the vaccines are made available, it requires enormous paraphernalia of medical, allied staff and well-equipped vaccination centres at small distances covering up to the Ward and Panchayat level which the government lacked.
Jammu Kashmir is also in the same boat, however, vaccination campaigns are going reasonable fine viz a viz the number of vaccines made available by the centre. As per the data uploaded on the national statistics, Jammu & Kashmir has so far till May 28 late evening, 32,04,133 doses of vaccines are administrated out of which 26,62,281 people have been vaccinated with the first dose and 5,41,852 persons were given the second dose. In a way, nearly 25 per cent of the population of J&K has been given the first and second jabs.
The strategy of reaching the prioritised groups by profession, trade, occupation proved good and should be further continued. The feature for on-site registration and appointment has been now enabled for the 18-44 years age group on CoWIN that too has helped a lot and relieved the frustration when the digital systems were often not working well.
While keeping it up in the urban centres, rural areas need urgent and prompt attention. Villages and remote areas are severely hit by the second wave of COVID-19 as the majority of villages lack infrastructure, internet technology and are not at par compared to their urban counterparts with fewer smartphones. and it is an uphill battle for less techy-savvy villagers to register and use the Cowin app for vaccinations.
The Health Ministry has said that the production capacity will reach nearly 10 crore doses per month by September this year. In a statement, it said that the current production capacity of Covaxin would be doubled by May-June 2021 and then increased nearly 6-7 fold by July/August i.e. from 1 crore vaccines in April, to 6-7 crore vaccines in July/August. It is expected to reach nearly 10 crore doses per month by September 2021.
The Ministry said that as of Friday, Bharat Biotech has supplied 2,76,66,860 vaccine doses to the Centre. Out of these, 2,20,89,880 doses including wastage, have been consumed by all the States/UTs in the ongoing Covid-19 Vaccination drive. With this, the balance available doses of vaccines with States/UTs are 55,76,980 doses.
What is more important is the administration should take certain measures to ensure no wastage of the vaccine and see that the queues are shortened at earliest to restore the confidence of its citizen which is in deficit as of now.
