‘Why start vaccination centres with pomp if jabs not available’

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said if the AAP government could not ensure that people get both the doses of Covaxin within the stipulated time, then it should not have started so many vaccination centres with “much pomp and splendour”.

Justice Rekha Palli issued notice to the Delhi government and sought its stand on whether it can provide the second dose of Covaxin to those who got the first jab, before expiry of the incubation period of six weeks between the two doses.

“Why did you (Delhi government) start it (vaccination) if you were not sure you can provide the second dose also? You should have stopped. Maharashtra stopped when it found it cannot provide the second dose,” the Delhi High Court said.

You (Delhi government) opened so many vaccination centres everywhere with so much pomp and splendour, and now you say you don’t know when the second dose stock would be available,” the court said while hearing the petitions. The court listed the matter for further hearing on June 4.

The petitioner also sought direction to the Delhi government to commence and carry out administration of second doses of Covaxin to the eligible persons of age group of 18 or above within the recommended interval of four to six weeks from the administration of first dose as per the recommendation of Covid Working Group.

The petitioner told the court that his petition arose out of the reports published in various newspapers dated May 30 that the Delhi government had suspended the vaccination drive since May 24 for the persons falling in the age group of 18-44 years due to unavailability of vaccines.

According to the recommendations of the Covid Working Group of National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 (NEGVAC), two doses of the vaccines have to be administered to the individuals and the time gap prescribed between the first and the second dosage for Covishield vaccine initially was four to six weeks which was increased to six to eight weeks in March, and recently on May 13, it has been increased to 12-16 weeks.

At the same time, the recommendation for Covaxin’s second dose has been the same throughout this period at four to six weeks from the first dose.