Slow vax drive by private centres a worry: Govt

The health ministry on Wednesday said the sluggish pace of procurement and administration of vaccines by private Covid vaccination centres (PCVCS) in some states is a “cause for serious worry”.

The government in a high-level review meeting held with 15 states said many private centres had not placed orders for the earmarked quantities of Covid vaccines. If the order was placed, the private centres had not made part of the payment for the indented vaccines. In some cases, no payment had been made for the order placed, said the health ministry.

The ministry has asked states to ensure speedy and effective coordination between PCVCS and vaccine manufacturers to unclog bottlenecks.

It also said that in some states the quantity of vaccines paid for had not been physically lifted by states or PCVCS. There were also instances where the vaccine doses had been lifted by PCVCS, but the actual administration was seen to be less than the vaccine quantity lifted.

“States and PCVCS were advised to review and ensure the balance of unutilised vaccine doses were quickly administered,” said the health ministry. The government has also advised states to facilitate vaccine procurement and review the status on a daily basis to ensure indents for the earmarked quantum are quickly placed with the vaccine manufacturers.

According to the COWIN portal, there are over 1,800 private Covid vaccination sites in the country, while over 29,000 sites are administered by the government. After crossing a record 9 million doses in a single day on June 21, the pace of vaccination had slowed in the last week to around 4 million. On July 13, around 3.7 million doses were administered in the country. Overall, 345 million doses have been administered so far. Under the revised guidelines for Covid vaccination, 25 per cent of the stock with manufacturers are available for procurement by private hospitals. States are required to aggregate their demand and use the COWIN platform as the back-end management tool for placing orders.

The meeting chaired by Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan was also attended by nodal representatives from vaccine manufacturers Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India.

Health secretaries and senior immunisation officials of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Delhi, Punjab, and Haryana were present at the meeting.