Covid-19: Over 4.4m vaccine doses wasted in India

Even as India battles the Covid-19 crisis, and tens of millions of people hope to get vaccinated, a whopping 4.4 million doses of the vaccine were wasted in a few states including Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Punjab.

An official response to a Right to Information (RTI) plea, according to NDTV, revealed that out of the 100 million doses used across the country by April 11, at least 4.4 million were wasted.

Tamil Nadu topped the list, accounting for 12.1 per cent of the total wastage. It was followed by Haryana (9.74 per cent), Punjab (8.12 per cent), Manipur (7.8 per cent) and Telangana (7.55 per cent).

But there was zero wastage of the vaccine in several other states including Kerala, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Goa, Daman and Diu and Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Rajesh Bhushan, the union health secretary, had recently pointed out that the problem was lack of better planning, not a shortage of vaccine doses. The Indian government has been supplying vaccines for the bigger states for four days in one lot, and replenishing supplies on the fourth and fifth days.

For smaller states, vaccines are provided in lots for seven to eight days and replenished later.

• India