Less Supply of COVID Vaccine affects vaccination Drive in Punjab: Balbir Singh Sidhu

Chandigarh : Before the third wave of Corona hits the country, the states are making every effort to ensure the vaccination of every citizen but in Punjab, less supply of COVID-19 vaccines from GoI has affected the vaccination drive.Disclosing this here today, Health Minister Mr. Balbir Singh Sidhu said that an imbalanced supply of COVID vaccine has slow down the pace of vaccination drive at large as Punjab has a strong infrastructure to easily administer the vaccine to three lac persons per day.Mr. Sidhu said that vaccination data revealed that the speed of vaccination drive has increased manifold, in BJP ruling States like MP, Haryana & Uttar Pradesh. He said that the on an average vaccination administered per day in MP before 20th June was 1.75 lac and surprisingly, it has increased to 17 lac on 21st June and it makes 9-time increase in total which exposed disparity being made by GoI in supply of vaccines among States.Mr. Sidhu divulged that Madhya Pradesh has received the supply of 17 lacs in a day while Punjab has got just 16 lacs doses from 1st June to 24 June. He said that the gap between demand and supply among states is a matter of concern and equal distribution of vaccines is very much important for the success of the world’s biggest immunization drive to save the precious lives of people.Same way, State like Haryana has made 7.14 many-fold increase in vaccination due to excess supply and in Karnataka, it is 5.50, Assam-5, Uttrakhand-3.80, HP-3, UP-2.29 and Gujrat-2.5, he added.Mr. Sidhu pointed out that the success of immunization drive majorly dependent on supply of vaccine whereas vaccine received by Punjab in the month of May was just 17 lacs which was very less in figure and GoI assured to deliver 21 lakh doses in the month of June, till now center only provided 16 lakh doses which shows that the uneven supply of vaccines is hitting the immunization drive hard in Punjab. Raising the issue of disparity during the supply of vaccines, the Health Minister asked the GoI to ensure supply of a minimum 2 lacs per day to Punjab so that set target to be achieved before 3rd wave of coronavirus.