Vaccine shortage, 26 vax centres shut in Mumbai

Mumbai: Amid the surge in covid 19 cases, twenty-six vaccination centres have been shut down in Mumbai as the state ran out of covid 9 vaccine doses. Of the centres that shut, 23 centres are located in Navi Mumbai.

Yesterday, Maharashtra CM and Health Minister had requested the Centre for more supply of vaccines citing that current vaccine doses will remain only for 3 more days.

Vaccination was halted in many parts of Maharashtra last evenings.

"Satara, Sangli, Panvel have stopped vaccinations," state health minister Rajesh Tope said, as reported by NDTV. Pune also shut over 100 vaccination centres because of vaccine shortage, Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule had tweeted.

Rajesh Tope has argued that the Centre was discriminating against Maharashtra and the state is supplied only 17 lakh vaccine doses, while the requirement is 40 lakh doses.

"Maharashtra has double the population of Gujarat. Gujarat has got one crore doses and we have got one crore doses," Tope said.

However, the Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan dismissed Maharashtra's argument and accused the state of making false claims to divert attention from its mismanagement of the outbreak.

"The inability of Maharashtra government to act responsibly is beyond comprehension... The lackadaisical attitude of the state government has singularly bogged down the entire country's efforts to fight the virus," said Dr Harsh Vardhan.

The financial capital has reported 59,907 new COVID-19 cases in the highest ever single-day spike today, taking the overall caseload to 31,73,261.