India’s virus epicenter, Maharashtra, runs out of features in New Wave

Photographer: Punit Paranjpe / AFP / Getty Images

India’s fight against a renewed wave of coronavirus infections is affected by the shortage of vaccines in several states and cities, including the financial capital, Mumbai.

The nation’s hardest-hit state, Maharashtra, has only three days of stock shots, Health Minister Rajesh Tope told reporters, while the country reported a new daily record of more than 126,700 cases on Thursday. . Maharashtra alone accounts for about 55,000 infections. There are also other states, including southern Andhra Pradesh low shots, according to the Economic Times.

The sharp jump in infections in early February, when the country reported around 11,000 infections a day, has forced states to restore movement bands and other restrictions. Maharashtra has stopped all non-essential services, ordered private companies to work from home and closed shopping malls and restaurants until April.

India’s federal health minister Harsh Vardhan issued a statement on Wednesday in which he he diverted the blame for the shortage and said some states, including Maharashtra, “were trying to divert attention from their poor vaccination efforts by simply continuously shifting targets.”

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For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose party is fighting five state elections, the ongoing health crisis may continue to affect its international image after India halted vaccine exports this month when the second wave of Covid occurred . The renewed restrictions also spur public anger over the government’s failure to get ahead of the virus despite a month-long hiatus.

After the country sent or gave more than 60 million doses of Covid vaccine, India last month said it would curb exports to focus on their own needs. The largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, the Serum Institute of India Ltd., is a key supplier of Covax, a program through which 2 billion doses of vaccine are supposed to be distributed to middle- and low-income countries, many of whom cannot afford to sign contracts. of acquisition alone.

But domestic demand is expected to exceed supply despite these export limits.

Amid the shortage, Modi announced on Thursday that he had received his second vaccine in New Delhi and urged citizens to enroll in the country’s vaccination program.

Tense supplies

For now, a month of supplies from India’s two approved vaccines only lasts 17 days with peak demand, not taking into account existing inventories, according to Mumbai-based Abhishek Sharma. health care analyst at Jefferies.

“As vaccination picks up pace across India, we expect demand to outstrip supply in the coming months,” Sharma wrote in a report on Tuesday. “Approved vaccines increase capacity, but only slowly.”

Maharashtra has only 1.7 million doses of vaccines on hand, Tope said on Thursday, adding that the administration had received an additional 750,000 shots but needed much more. He had previously asked the federal government to organize at least 4 million doses a week to control the state’s growing pandemic.

Several districts and cities, including Bombay, were facing a severe shortage of gunfire and had been forced to close vaccination centers, he said.

Still, Indian medical groups, public health experts and business leaders have called on the government to fully open inoculation to all age groups as the second wave continues to grow. Currently, the nation only allows people over the age of 45 to be shot. For a country the size and population density of India, movement curbs offer only a temporary respite.

No locks

India relies mostly on its inoculation to curb the second wave, he said Charles Clift, senior consultant at Chatham House’s Center on Global Health Program in London. “Blocking themselves effectively in this environment is quite difficult, so they have to rely heavily on the vaccine to control them.”