Ludhiana among 9 dists with no vaccine wastage

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 23

Ludhiana, being the biggest and the most populated district in the state, is not only leading in the overall coverage of Covid vaccination with close to 11-lakh inoculation mark, which is almost one-third of the total population of 35 lakh, but also among nine such districts which have so far reported no wastage of Covid vaccine in the state, the government has confirmed.

While Ludhiana is among the five best performing districts with their vaccine wastage below even minus 1 per cent, four other districts have reported zero vaccine wastage, the official figures have revealed.

The data analysed by the Health and Family Welfare Department, which is available with The Tribune, showed that Ludhiana and Ropar ranked fourth best performing districts with minus 1 per cent vaccine wastage, Pathankot topped Punjab with minus 8 per cent vaccine wastage, Sangrur second with minus 3, and Patiala stood third with minus 2 per cent vaccine wastage in the state.

Punjab reported an overall net vaccine wastage of 1.98 per cent, which included 1 per cent state procured vaccine, till June 18.

Among other districts, Mohali reported 1 per cent vaccine wastage, followed by Jalandhar 2 per cent, Faridkot and Kapurthala 3 per cent each, Ferozepur, Bathinda, Mansa, Amritsar 4 per cent each, Barnala 7 per cent, Gurdaspur 9 per cent, Fatehgarh Sahib 10 per cent, and Fazilka and Muktsar proved to be the worst-performers with the highest vaccine wastage of 11 per cent of the total stock provided to them by the state government till last week.

The comparison of wastage trend in vaccine type suggested that the wastage of Covishield in Punjab drastically dropped from 5 per cent between May 13 and 20 to 2 per cent between May 27 and June 3, before touching the record low of minus 2 per cent on June 17. Comparatively, the wastage of Covaxin remained static at minus 1 per cent from May 27 to June 17.

On the national front, the Covishield wastage came down from a whopping 13 per cent on April 1 to 2 per cent on June 17 and Covaxin wastage dipped from 5 per cent on April 1 to zero on June 17.

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