Delhi COVID vaccine reserve exhausted, 100 vaccine sites forced to close

NEW DELHI:

The Delhi Government has been forced to close 100 vaccination sites on Wednesday after the centres exhausted the vaccine reserve, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said.

While addressing a press conference, Sisodia informed that the reserve stock of the Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN has been exhausted, as the supply from the manufacturer was less than what the Delhi government had ordered.

"We had demanded 1.34 crore doses, 67 lakhs each of COVAXIN and Covishield. COVAXIN (Bharat Biotech) wrote to us yesterday that they cannot provide it. They wrote we're making dispatches as per directives of concerned government officials. Obvious that these are central government officials," Sisodia said.

Sisodia further said that the centres administering Covishield vaccines are functioning, but they had to close down the centres administering COVAXIN at 100 centres across 17 schools.

Meanwhile, Sisodia also hit out to the central government on the issue and stated that it should act as the 'government of the county' and carry out its responsibility of offering vaccines to Delhi which has witnessed unprecedented deaths due to the virus. 

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting other capable companies to manufacture the two COVID-19 vaccines-COVAXIN and Covishield, which are already being produced in India and said the Union government should do away with the vaccine production monopoly using the patent law.

The national capital saw a decline in the number of cases on Wednesday which stood at 12,000 which is positive news given the number of cases that were being reported last week.

(Edited by Shankar Kumar Turha)

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