‘Desist from shameless urge to play politics’: Union health minister slams ‘irresponsible statements’ by leaders on vaccination drive | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday urged opposition leaders to desist from the “shameless urge to play politics” in the midst of a pandemic.
In a series of tweets, the Union health minister alleged that some leaders were making “irresponsible statements” about the Covid-19 vaccination drive.
“I’m seeing irresponsible statements from various leaders regarding the largest vaccination drive. Stating facts so that people can judge intentions of these leaders,” the Union health minister said.
He urged these leaders to spend “more energy in planning and not in creating panic”.
“If these leaders are aware of these facts and are still making such statements, I consider it most unfortunate. If they don’t know, they need to focus on governance,” the Union minister said.

Harsh Vardhan’s outburst comes amid claims by some states that they did not have enough vaccines to continue with the inoculation drive.
The Union health minister also announced that a total of 12 crore doses will be made available in July. The supplies to the private hospitals will be over and above this, he said.
Vardhan said that the states were informed 15 days in advance about vaccine supplies for July. Even the day-wise supply details were shared with the states, the minister said.

He blamed the states for the problems in the vaccination drive.
“If there are issues in states, it shows that they need to plan their vaccination drives better. Intra-state planning and logistics are the responsibility of the states,” the minister said.
The minister’s claims notwithstanding several states claimed that shortage of vaccines had affected their inoculation drive.
Odisha halts vaccination drive in 16 districts
Odisha was forced to halt vaccination drive in 16 districts due to ‘shortage’ of Covishield doses.
The inoculation exercise was temporarily stopped during the day in Angul, Bolangir, Balasore, Bargarh, Bhadrak, Deogarh, Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Jajpur and Jharsuguda.
No Covid-19 vaccination drive was conducted in Kandhamal, Kendrapara, Koraput, Nabarangpur, Sonepur and Sundargarh, according to an official.
The state has a stock of only 19,520 Covishield doses and 3,24,910 Covaxin vials till this morning, the official said.
The government was not able to conduct the immunisation programme in 11 districts on Wednesday due to the scarcity of Covishield doses, he said.
Assam fails to achieve 30 lakh inoculation target due to short supply of vaccines
BJP-led Assam government could vaccinate only 16.63 lakh people in the last 10 days, almost 45 per cent less than chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma‘s target of inoculating 30 lakh people.
A senior health official said this was due to a massive shortage of Covid-19 vaccines.
The chief minister had said that from June 21, Assam would be targeting three lakh vaccinations daily till June 30.
However, as per the daily Covid-19 bulletin issued by the National Health Mission under the state health department, a total of 16,63,405 people were inoculated across the state from June 21 to June 30.
This figure is way below the ambitious 30-lakh target set during CM’s meeting with all the stakeholders of the districts on June 19.
The government could touch the daily target of three lakh vaccines only on two days — June 21 (3,30,667 jabs) and June 23 (3,60,315 jabs).
‘Jharkhand facing shortage of Covid vaccines’
The Jharkhand government also claimed that it was facing a shortage of Covid-19 vaccines. On June 29, a state health department official said that the state is left with just one day’s stock of Covid-19 vaccine.
“Jharkhand is left with 82652 vials of vaccine which is sufficient enough for today only. As of now, there is no vaccine for tomorrow. We are having talks with the central government. Hopefully, we will get some information regarding this by late evening,” Siddharth Tripathi, Senior Nodal officer of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) wing of health department had said on Tuesday.
(With inputs from PTI)