Amid Covid fear, South Indian states face shortage of Covishield

Amid the spurt in Covid-19 cases in China, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, and South Korea, South India states, including Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh are witnessing a persistent increase in the takers of vaccines and booster doses.

Telangana has administered over six lakh vaccines in the last 10 days which has brought the number of available vaccines in the state by almost 60 percent.

However, the situation arises three months after the Union Government stopped the production and distribution of Covishield vaccine, reported The News Minute.

Besides, there are fewer to no doses of Covishield available in the South Indian states.

As per reports, the vaccination stock of Telangana was over nine lakhs as on December 27, 2022. However, by January 5, 2023, the state reportedly has 3,46,910 vaccines in stock. And, there are no Covishield doses available in the stock to distribute to the districts.

The districts at present are left with the last 50,000 doses of Covishield. But, Covaxin is available at both the district and state stores, and the available stock is around 2, 93,960.

An official from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of Andhra Pradesh said that the state is currently facing a shortage of Covishield. The official further informed that the Covaxin stock will soon be replenished as the Central Government is expected to deliver the stocks by January 7, 2023, reported TNM.

In Karnataka, 230 doses of Covishield were available with the state while the districts had 310 at their disposal till January 3, 2023. Over six lakh Covaxin doses, on the other hand, are available across districts.

“We currently have a stockpile of 6,87,270 doses. Out of these, we have a total of 6,86,730 Covaxin doses and 540 Covishield doses. Since COVID-19 spikes driven by the new BF.7 subvariant of Omicron have occurred in many countries across the world, there has been a slight increase in the number of people taking booster shots,” said Karnataka Health Minister Dr. K Sudhakar as quoted by TNM.

“Around 8,000 to 14,000 people are being administered precautionary doses every day in Karnataka. In order to manage the increasing number of vaccination takers in the state, those who have been administered two doses of either Covaxin or Covishield are being offered the choice of receiving Corbevax as a precautionary dose. However, the state and districts had no Corbevax available in stock or transit as on January 3,” said the health minister.

All the vaccines which are being used currently are produced by various private manufacturers like Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech. The union government has assured that an adequate amount of doses will be procured and supplied as the demand increases, said Dr. K Sudhakar.

Meanwhile, the Directorate of Health Services of Kerala informed that there are no doses of Covishield available with the state at present while around 13 thousand Covaxin doses are available.

“Although India is preparing for any potential increase in the number of Covid-19 cases and the Directorate of Health Services is undertaking measures to administer vaccine doses and precautionary doses, we have not seen any substantial increase in the number of vaccine takers in the state since December,” the official said as reported by TNM.

Similarly, Tamil Nadu has also not seen a surge in the number of vaccine takers. Dr. TS Selva Vinayagam, Director of Public Health, Tamil Nadu said, “Tamil Nadu has around three lakh doses of vaccine at present but they are underutilised at the time. If this trend continues, the currently available stock can last for more than a month.”