Lucknow, June 18: Covid-19 vaccine wastage in the state of Uttar Pradesh has come down to less than one per cent since the launch of the massive inoculation drives against coronavirus.
While many states are complaining about the lack of vaccines on one hand and allowing enough stocks to go to waste on the other, Uttar Pradesh is working on a war footing to ensure maximum vaccination coverage.
Meanwhile, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu are witnessing maximum wastage of vaccine doses, according to the latest data released by the Central Government.
According to the data of UP Health Department on June 12, 2021, the wastage of both Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin has decreased drastically in the last two and a half months and it has come down to less than one percent.
It is the result of continuous efforts made by the State Government by increasing the speed of vaccination that resulted 0.89 percent of total vaccine wastage.
A spokesperson of the state government said on Friday that more than 36 districts of Uttar Pradesh have recorded a negative wastage figure for Covaxin, indicating that more than a stipulated number of people are being vaccinated. Vaccine wastage for Covaxin is only 0.87 percent.
“However, when it comes to Covishield, the state recorded a total wastage of only 0.92 vaccines, with 25 districts showing negative wastage figures. Vaccine wastage refers to the number of doses wasted compared to those administered during the drive. Vaccine wastage can be mainly divided into two categories in which one is wastage in closed vials and second is wastage in open vials,” he added.
Efforts to bring the wastage of vaccine to zero in the state
The spokesperson said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in his high level COVID review meetings with the officials has repeatedly urged to bring down the wastage of vaccine to zero. In fact the UP CM has already directed the officials to plan to increase the vaccination coverage through available stock and anticipated supplies. According to the health official, ‘Vaccine management is an equally important element and we are very careful to keep it to a minimum.’
UP is doing about four lakh vaccinations in a day
He informed that about four lakh vaccinations are being done in the state in a day and a plan has been made to vaccinate about 10 lakh people from July. In the last 24 hours, more than 4, 04,192 people have received the vaccine.
“Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has instructed top officials to speed up vaccination. The Yogi government has set a target of vaccinating 10 crore people by the end of August. The Yogi government is working on a war footing to speed up the vaccination campaign. Trainees are being trained for the vaccination process and to achieve the target,” he told.
According to the spokesperson, a total of 2.46 crore vaccine doses have been given so far in UP. Out of this 2, 07, 28,945 are the first dose and the number of second dose is 39, 48,835.
