Delhi blames Bharat Bio for vaccine shortage

New Delhi: Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday alleged that Bharat Biotech had refused to supply the required doses of its Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin to Delhi.  

Addressing a press conference, Mr Sisodia said Delhi had asked for 1.34 crore doses of two Covid vaccines -- 67 lakhs each of Covaxin and Covishield. However, Bharat Biotech had told the Delhi government of its inability to supply these doses as it is “making dispatches as per the directives of concerned government officials”. Mr Sisodia said it was obvious Bharat Biotech was referring to Central government officials.

“They further wrote: ‘We sincerely regret that we cannot make any additional supplies as required by you’. I don’t know how much is being supplied to other states, but they have written to us they can’t provide to Delhi as they have to supply as per the Central government order,” the deputy CM said.

Mr Sisodia said Delhi had run out of its reserve stock of vaccines. “Our reserve stock has been exhausted. The centres administering Covishield vaccines are functioning, but we had to close the centres administering Covaxin. We had to close down more than 100 centres across 17 schools,” Mr Sisodia said.

The deputy CM urged the Centre to stop all vaccine-related exports and allow more companies to produce doses. He said the Centre must import vaccine doses from across the world and make them available to state governments. “Importing vaccines and making them available to state governments should be the Centre’s responsibility. State governments should be responsible for smooth and fast immunisation drives,” he said.