Shortage of vaccine hits jab drive in Karnal

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, May 10

The short supply of vaccines in the district has hampered the vaccination drive. So far, around 27 per cent of the eligible population has been vaccinated in the district. People are not getting their appointment for the vaccination reportedly owing to the shortage of vaccine.

The district has around 16 lakh population, of them around 9.5 lakh are eligible (from the age group of 18 and above). Out of this, 2,64,390 persons of the district have got themselves vaccinated till today.

As many as 1,19,647 persons got the first dose, while 44,743 persons got both the jabs, said the data of the Health Department. The number of men and women is almost the equal in vaccination as 1,13,518 male, 1,06,113 female and 16 transgender got vaccinated. Out of total eligible 9.5 lakh, around 3.5 lakh are from the age group of 45 and above, while around 6 lakh are of age group between 18 and 44. As far as the availability of the vaccine is concerned, there are around 300 doses of Covishield for the age group between 18 and 44, around 8,600 doses of Covishield for the age group above 44 and around 600 doses of Covaxin for the age group of above 44, said sources. On the other hand, people had to wait for long for the vaccination appointment. “I have been trying to get an appointment for the vaccination for the last four-days but cannot get an appointment as all slots are booked for the next week,” said Yogesh Kumar, a resident of the city.

As per the authorities after the increase in the numbers of Covid patients, people are coming to get themselves vaccinated, whereas earlier, people were hesitant to get themselves vaccinated.

“Earlier, we had to face challenge as people were reluctant to come forward, but after the starting of the second wave people are coming to vaccination centres voluntarily. We used to conduct 150 centres when we had sufficient supply of the vaccine, but now we are holding 40-50 session daily,” said Dr Yogesh Sharma, Civil Surgeon. “We have sent request for more vaccines and after the availability of sufficient vaccines we will increase the number of Covid sessions,” he added.

Nishant Kumar Yadav, DC, also admitted that less availability of vaccine was one of the big challenges, but in the coming days they would have sufficient supply.