Madhya Pradesh has joined a string of states that have expressed their inability to start vaccinating the 18-44 age group population against COVID-19 infection, citing vaccine unavailability.
Madhya Pradesh is one of the first major BJP-ruled states to express this inability. On Thursday, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani announced vaccinations for those above 18 would start by May 15, instead of May 1. Before this, opposition-ruled states like Rajasthan, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra had already said that they would not be able to take up the 18-44 age group vaccination as vaccine doses were not available.
The decision for Madhya Pradesh was announced late on Thursday night by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan following a review meeting with senior officials of the state.
Chouhan, while announcing this, urged the people “to have patience and not to panic”.
Chouhan took to Twitter to say “the campaign to vaccinate people over 18 years of age was to commence from May 1. Madhya Pradesh has placed orders with companies concerned for doses of Covishield (Serum Institute) and Covaxin (Bharat Biotech) for the purpose, but communications with both the companies has revealed that they will not be able to provide us with the vaccines. Therefore, the vaccination programme will not be able to start in MP from May 1.”
He added “We know that there are limitations regarding production (of vaccines). As productions proceed and we get the vaccine, we will start the campaign to vaccinate our youth over 18 years of age, free of cost. Madhya Pradesh is expected to get the vaccines by May 3 and the campaign will start after that.”
Sources said that MP has placed order of 45 lakh doses of Covishield with Serum Institute, and it is expected to receive just about 2-2.5 lakh doses by May 3 and even this is not very sure. If it does receive the doses, the state can start the 18+ vaccination from May 5 at the earliest. Bharat Biotech, sources said, was yet to respond to the state government's communication regarding vaccine purchase.
Madhya Pradesh, according to the data of the report of the Technical Group on Population Projections of the GoI, has about 3.60 crore population in the age bracket of 18-44 years—a huge population chunk, compared with about 1.89 crore people in the 45+ age bracket (out of projected total population of 8.45 crore in 2021).
On the first day of the third phase of vaccine registration on April 28, about 77,000 slots opened for registration for the first day (May 1) were taken up within an hour, sources said. However, now the slots will get deferred and the registrations are likely to pile on, if not stopped temporarily.
The MP government had stopped vaccinations of 45+ age bracket from April 28 to 30, citing preparations for the 18-44 age group vaccination. Chouhan assured that this campaign will continue free of cost with help of doses being received from the Union government.
The Central government has not approved of the requests of the state governments to use the GoI-allocated vaccines to vaccinate the 18-44 age group. The states are to vaccinate this age group from their own resources by making arrangements for vaccines themselves.
Kamal Nath attacks govts over deferment
The ex-chief minister and MP Congress Committee chief Kamal Nath has attacked both the BJP-led Madhya Pradesh and Central governments over the deferment of proposed vaccination drive due to unavailability of vaccines.
“No beds in hospitals, no treatment, no oxygen, no lifesaving drugs or injections in the Shivraj government-ruled state and now there is no vaccine, which is crucial for preventing COVID-19 infection,” Kamal Nath tweeted.
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He added “Big announcements on vaccination of youth over 18 years of age from May 1 were made. People have registered themselves in large numbers too and now there is no vaccine and there is no certainty as to when they will be received and administered. What kind of government is this?”
Kamal Nath further said “They (Central government) called themselves vishwaguru (global leader) and made big claims of having sent out vaccines across the globe, but there are no vaccines available for our own population. Neither treatment available if people are infected, nor vaccines available to prevent the infection. People are left to the mercy of God. What kind of achche din (good days) are these?”
