Jabs for 18-44 to be shut from today: Kejriwal

NEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday appealed to the central government to increase the Capital’s allocation of vaccines against the coronavirus disease, saying that the city was running out of stocks and that inoculations of younger adults in the 18-44 age group were to grind to a halt at government-run centres by Sunday.

Delhi received 1.6 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines this month, and its allocation for June has been halved to around 800,000, the chief minister said, adding that at this rate, it will take the city 30 months – or two-and-a-half years – to inoculate its entire adult population of around 15 million adults.

Kejriwal reiterated that Delhi needs around 8 million doses per month to vaccinate all adults in the next three months.

“Delhi needs 80 lakh vaccine doses every month. In comparison to this, the central government allocated 16 lakh doses to Delhi in May. The same has been slashed to 8 lakh doses for next month (June). At this pace, it will take 30 months to vaccinate all adults in Delhi. Till then, no one knows how many waves and deaths due to Covid-19 will we have to see. We need 2.5 crore (25 million) more doses to vaccinate the rest of the adults in Delhi,” he said at an online press briefing.

Kejriwal also said that on Saturday, most government-run vaccination centres will run out of doses to administer to those below the age of 45.

Only 31 government-run vaccination centres for younger adults were functional on Saturday, compared to the around 200 that were open earlier this week. According to the government’s records, no fresh stocks are expected for the rest of this month.

“Vaccines for the 18-44 age group have finished because of which centres for the youth are being closed from today. Few doses of the vaccine are left in some centres, but these also will get over by today evening. From tomorrow (Sunday), all centres for the youth will shut down. We have also written to the central government asking for more vaccines,” Kejriwal said.

To be sure, centres by private hospitals are still open for inoculating younger adults through doses they acquired directly from vaccine makers. Senior officials of private hospitals -Indraprastha Apollo, Max group and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital -- told HT on Saturday that they have sufficient stock for the below-45 category as of now. They did not give further details. Additionally, the Capital also has doses for people aged 45 and above.

Hours after Kejriwal’s statement, the BJP hit out at the Aam Aadmi Party leader for “indulging in politics” and said he should stop making “excuses”.