"No Question Of Discrimination": Centre On Vaccine Distribution

Reacting to Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope's allegation that the state received lesser Covid vaccines than other states, the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday said there was no question of discrimination.

The Health Ministry said that the full initial procurement amount of 1.65 crore doses of Covishield and Covaxin vaccines have been allocated to all states and Union Territories in the proportion of Health Care Workers (HCWs) database.

"Therefore, there is no question of discrimination against any state in the allocation of vaccine doses," it said in a series of tweets.

The ministry said that an initial lot of supply of vaccine doses was done and it would be continuously replenished in the weeks to come.

"Therefore, any apprehension being expressed on account of deficient supply is totally baseless and unfounded," it added.

Noting that states have been advised to organise vaccination sessions taking into account 10 percent reserve or wastage of doses and an average of 100 vaccinations per session per day, "any undue haste to organise unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day is not advised," it said.

According to the Union Health Ministry, the states and union territories have also been advised to increase the number of vaccination session sites that would be operational every day in a progressive manner as the vaccination process stabilises.

The Maharashtra government has said it so far received 9.83 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccines out of the total requirement of 17.5 lakh for inoculation in the first phase.

The state has received only 9.63 lakh vials of Covishield vaccine from the Serum Institute of India and "merely" 20,000 vials from the Bharat Biotech, Mr Tope said.