State on Saturday received at least 35,570 Covaxin doses to tide over the shortage of the Bharat Biotech-made vaccine amid a growing demand for it among Jharkhand residens, health officials said.
“We received over 35,000 Covaxin doses today morning. More Covaxin doses are expected by the end of this month,” said State immunisation officer Dr. Ajit Prasad.
Covaxin has fast become the desired vaccine against Covid-19 for residents, primarily due to the shorter gap between the two doses as compared to Covishield. However, its limited supply has not only left the beneficiaries of second dose waiting, but also forced many first dose beneficiaries to delay their jab, officials said.
As per Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines, Covaxin requires a gap of only 28 days between the two doses, while the second dose of Covishield is administered at least 84 days after the first dose. Many people planning to travel abroad are opting for Covaxin over Covishield due to the shorter gap between the two doses. Some states too have made RT-PCR test mandatory for travellers who haven’t received both their vaccine doses, which gives Covaxin beneficiaries an edge over people who receive other vaccines.
The state, as per government data, had hardly 7000 doses of Covaxin in stock until Saturday. Jharkhand received only about 1 lakh doses of Covaxin from the centre in July against over 15 lakh Covishield doses.
The number of Covishield doses administered in the state so far was at least six times the number of Covaxin doses, latest data with the health department highlighted. As per government data, the state has administered Covaxin doses to over 13.76 lakh residents and Covishield to around 71.62 lakh beneficiaries.
While the immunisation campaign against Covid-19 has been a bumpy ride in the tribal state this month with periods of extreme crisis and surplus dose availability, the health machinery has relied heavily on the easily available Covishield vaccine to prevent the vaccination drive from coming to a standstill, officials said.
Jharkhand received 5,30,430 doses of Covishield on Friday and an additional 2.61 lakh on Saturday to run the immunisation campaign for the remaining period of July, officials said. While the state received over 15 lakh doses of Covishield this month, hardly 1 lakh doses of Covaxin were supplied from the Centre.
A highly-placed source involved in the immunisation drive against Covid-19 said that the health department has asked vaccination centres to prioritize administering Covaxin to second dose beneficiaries over people willing to get the first jab of the vaccine.