Curb COVID-19 vaccine wastage, cross-selling by private hospitals, Centre tells states

The Centre has asked states to curb wastage of vaccines to avoid creation of a black market in the future, curb cross-selling of products by private hospitals to people who come for vaccination, and to focus on resolving scheduling and other implementation issues including issuing of digital certificates for those vaccinated.

The issues were discussed at a high-level meeting on Tuesday between central government officials and state chief secretaries, chaired by principal secretary, PMO, PK Mishra.

Maharashtra, which is seeing a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases, sought to include the judiciary in the priority list for vaccinations while Himachal Pradesh called for including truck drivers in the priority group.


"It has come to the central government's notice that there is wastage of as much as 25% vaccine in some of the vaccination centres," an official aware of the discussions told ET, giving an example of Andhra Pradesh.

Explaining the issue, the official said, in a vial of Covaxin, there are as many as 20 doses and in Covishield, about 10. Hence, once a vial is opened it must be used within three to four hours, failing which the remaining doses are wasted.

"States have been asked to improve their planning and scheduling mechanism to combat this wastage," the official said.

Another official said the government wants to curb wastage in the initial stages itself so that it doesn't result in leakage and later create a black market for vaccines.

Another issue that came to light is rampant cross-selling of products in private hospitals, the first official said. "When people go to get vaccinated, they are offered additional check-ups, insurance products, etc.," the person said. "In many cases, the ones who buy (additional products) get preference in vaccination over the others. The states were told to stop this."

Among the other things flagged by the Centre was the necessity to ensure smooth implementation of the vaccination process, planning out logistics to activate as many centres as possible to make the drive sustainable rather than just focusing on getting high numbers. "States were asked to make it a people friendly experience," the official said.

The central government reiterated that there was no shortage of vaccines and states and UTs must leverage private hospitals to enhance delivery of vaccinations.

States were also told to ensure that private hospitals disclose a schedule for not less than 28 days.

"Widening of vaccines' access, expanding capacity across public and private centres, maximising efficiency in reducing wastage, ensuring safe delivery to citizens with facilities such as drinking water at centres...encouraging registration over walk-ins, preventing any stock piling or hoarding and reviewing the vaccination process on real time basis with Co-Win platform" were some of the issues discussed, a statement issued by the government said.

Apart from chief secretaries of all the states and UTs, cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, pharmaceuticals department secretary S Aparna, biotechnology secretary Renu Swarup, Niti Aayog member VK Paul and National Health Authority (NHA) CEO RS Sharma were present in the meeting.