Vaccine drive slackens amid shortage, Covid fight hit in Punjab

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 17

When the state is struggling with high Covid mortality, the vaccination drive has seen a steep dip. Last week between May 9 and May 15, just 2.69 lakh doses of the vaccine could be administrated. Earlier weeks’ average remained between 5 and 6 lakh doses.

• Also read: Punjab health officials fear spike as labourers arrive in villages
• 24-year-old dies of Covid, mom says wasn’t given Oxygen for 3 days
• Pandemic-induced stress ‘on rise’
• 116 test +ve in a day at Muktsar village
• ‘Fateh’ kits in short supply, MLA comes out with own

Till mid April, on an average the state was administering between 6 and 7 lakh doses. But due to the shortage of vaccine, it started to decline over the next five weeks.

As per the data of the state Health Department, in the last two weeks, the situation was such that between May 2 and May 8, the state administered just 3.38 lakh doses and in the next week it came down further to 2.69 lakh in the last week. The situation is such that on Sunday just 39,000 doses of vaccine could be administered in the entire day.

In March, the state had announced to administer 1.5 lakh doses of vaccine everyday, but for the past one-and-a-half month due to the shortage of supply by the Centre, the drive witnessed a steep decline.

So far the state has administered 41.48 lakh doses to various groups, including healthcare workers, frontline workers and people above the age of 18.

41.48 lakh doses administered

• Healthcare workers administered 2.81 lakh jabs
• Frontline workers given 7.82 lakh doses

30.32 lakh shots given to above 45-year population

0.95 lakh doses administered to 18-44 age group