States have 17.75 million Covid-19 vaccine doses in stock

States were holding additional stocks of 17.75 million vaccine doses as per updates available with the Centre on Wednesday. Of these, six states – Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh – had at least a million-plus doses in their respective stocks.

This data, health ministry officials said, does not include stocks being held by private hospitals but covers doses for both 18-44 and 45-plus age categories. The Centre has asked states with high stocks still in reserve to scale up their effort and administer these doses at the earliest.

Vaccinations in the 18-44 age group have exceeded that in the 45-plus category since mid-May. The decision to increase the gap between doses from 6-8 weeks to 12-16 weeks could be a contributing factor, said officials.

According to CoWIN data, 7,324,352 doses were administered in the 18-44 age group between May 16 and May 25 compared to 6,108,696 in the 45-plus category.

Over the last three days, almost all states and union territories, barring nine, have reflected the same trend.

Even in smaller states and UTs such as Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, over 90% doses administered are in the 18-44 age group. But many states like Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Punjab and Telangana have shown a mixed pattern with doses to 45-plus age group exceeding the other category on some days. Telengana, which had suspended the drive citing paucity of vaccines, has now resumed.

Besides this, the health ministry has asked states to reduce vaccine wastage. But the issue has now become a bone of contention over data computing between the Centre and the states such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh, which have been singled out for high wastage.

According to the ministry data as collated through CoWIN, the wastage for these states are: Jharkhand (37.3%), Chhattisgarh (30.2%), Tamil Nadu (15.5%), and Madhya Pradesh (10.7%). The national average is 6.3%. But these states told ET that there was “data mismatch” and the health ministry portal had not updated data from all districts, counting certain utilised vaccine doses as wastage.

“We have already taken this up. There is data mismatch. There is vaccine usage data they haven’t taken into account. This was also taken up in the meeting with health minister Harsh Vardhan ji and we were assured that till data is tallied it would not be released,” Chhattisgarh health minister T S Singh Deo told ET, adding that their computation shows vaccine wastage of only 0.83% in 45+ age group and 0.63% in 18-44 age group for the state.

Jharkhand claimed that its wastage is 3% and not 37.3%. “There is data mismatch. Their portal is not taking all the data on vaccines being used. We are taking it up with the Centre. They have already told us that if we waste vaccines, they will cut our supply. This should not be a ploy to reduce supplies to Jharkhand,” Jharkhand health minister Banna Gupta told ET, adding that the state had received 4,971,060 vaccine doses, of which it has used 4,207,128 doses.

Tamil Nadu health secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan also said there was data mismatch. “It’s a portal issue. Statistically it is not possible for us to have 15.5% wastage. We have informed the Centre through UNDP team also,” he told ET. Madhya Pradesh National Health Mission (NHM) director Chhavi Bharadwaj said data of vaccine utilisation from several districts had not been uploaded. “Our wastage is 3%. We will get data reconciled today in the ministry’s portal,” she told ET.

This is not the first time that the states have contested the Centre’s vaccine wastage statistics. Earlier, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana had contested their figures. Haryana, which had a 6.49% wastage on May 11, has as on May 25 negative wastage (minus 1%).