Vaccination drive in states with high caseload slows

Daily vaccination numbers in eight of the ten highest caseload states in the country fell last week, amidst reports of supply constraints as well as local curfews and rapidly rising infections that discouraged people from stepping out and visiting inoculation centres. This doesn’t bode well for the country’s immunisation drive, which needs to be rapidly accelerated to tackle the Covid-19 crisis.

The declining trend was first noticed in the week of April 12-18. The daily doses administered during the week averaged 2.8 million compared to 3.45 million in the preceding week of April 5-11. Between April 19-24 the daily average doses were 2.69 million. According to daily vaccination statistics of the ministry of health and family welfare, Maharashtra, which has the highest active case burden at 700,207 cases, vaccinated 325,000 beneficiaries on April 24, as against 376,000 on April 19 ( The number rose to over 500,000 on Monday, April 26). During the same period, Delhi saw daily numbers decline from 60,870 to 36,250 and in Uttar Pradesh, the numbers dipped from 191,000 to 181,000.

Kerala (156,000 to 124,000), Rajasthan (307,000 to 174,000), Chhattisgarh (86,553 to 59,758), Gujarat (169,000 to 167,000) and Madhya Pradesh (177,000 to 35,879), witnessed a similar trend as well. Tamil Nadu bucked the trend with daily jabs going up from 103,000 on April 19 to 129,000 on April 24. The numbers did decline for two days to 73,000 and 77,000, respectively, but the state has been steadily vaccinating about 120,000 beneficiaries daily since it wrapped up elections on April 6. Karnataka, which has the third-highest active cases in India at 262,000, has seen a marginal increase from 246,000 on April 19 to 255,000 on April 24.

“A large chunk of the unvaccinated population is scared due to sudden surge of Covid-19 cases in various parts of the country and probably this is why the numbers are declining,” said Dr Harsh Mahajan, president, NATHEALTH, healthcare federation of private hospitals and diagnostic centres. State government officials too are of a similar view. “People are scared to come to hospitals due to a sudden increase in Covid-19 cases, so we have seen a decline in numbers. In the beginning, some places also faced a problem of continuing vaccination, but then additional staff was deputed and vaccination has continued,” said a Rajasthan state official.

Apart from the high caseload states, vaccination numbers also declined in states which witnessed a sudden increase in Covid-19 cases like West Bengal and Haryana. West Bengal started last week with 212,000 vaccinations, but the numbers fell to 157,000 on April 24. There were two days in the week when the numbers crossed 200,000. Haryana started the week with 96,697 vaccinations but ended with 72,899 on April 24. Odisha, which has been complaining about jab shortages, vaccinated 142,000 people on April 19, but just 17,215 on April 24.

Some states which have not seen a sharp increase in cases have seen a rise in vaccinations. Jammu and Kashmir, which vaccinated 66,247 people on April 19, inoculated more people than Delhi on April 24. Punjab, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are the large states that registered an increase in inoculations last week. The health ministry red-flagged the declining numbers in the high caseload states at a meeting with state health departments on Saturday pointing out that partial lockdowns and curfews should not impact the people going for vaccinations. The states should clearly lay down that vaccine beneficiaries are exempted, the health departments were told.