Vaccines arriving in a day or two: Official
Srinagar: The move to start the second phase of vaccination targeting all adults above 18 years of age is likely to witness a delay as the stock of Covid-19 vaccines in Kashmir division has run out of stock.
People from different areas said that they have been visiting vaccination centres for three consecutive day, “but no vaccines were available”.
“Officials at the centre are telling us to come for vaccination next week. We were also told to confirm the availability before visiting the centre,” they said.
They requested concerned authorities to make vaccines available at the earliest.
Notably, a day before the administration had claimed that there is no shortage of vaccines besides medicines and other required essentials.
Top health officials from the Kashmir division said that in past two-three days there was vaccination shortage mostly in Srinagar district “but centres in other parts of Kashmir are also running dry.”
Officials said there has been a spike in demand for vaccines, which is why the stock is over.
However, they claimed that in the coming days, the shortage would be taken care of.
As per official figures, the administration has vaccinated over 22 lakh people in Jammu and Kashmir which includes 50 per cent of the target so far in the age group of people above 45.
When contacted, the State Immunisation Officer said that for Friday, there was the stock of just around 16,000 vaccines available for Kashmir, however, per day around 40,000 people were being vaccinated across Kashmir division.
He said that the 16,000 vaccines would have been administered in the morning.
“We are in touch with concerned authorities and fresh stock will reach here tomorrow or day after tomorrow,” he said. “There is no need to worry as everyone will get an opportunity to get vaccinated.”
Financial Commissioner Health and Medical Education Atal Dulloo had on Thursday said that starting the vaccination process for all above 18 years of age will take around 20 days time.
“As of now State/UT administration has to purchase vaccines directly from manufacturing companies which they earlier were getting directly from the central government,” Dulloo said. (KNO)
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