Due to lack of adequate vaccine stock, COVID19 vaccination in Mumbai will remain shut for the next three days starting from tomorrow, April 30 till May 2.

“Owing to non-availability of vaccine stock, no vaccination will be conducted at any Govt/BMC/Pvt CVC for the next 3 days (30 Apr-2 May). All efforts are being made to make more stock available & resume the drive. We urge Mumbaikars to cooperate with BMC,” Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation tweeted today.

While the country’s financial capital has run out of vaccine stock, India is entering the third phase of its vaccination campaign on May 1. Everyone above 18 years of age is eligible for vaccination. This planned vaccination is expected to start late in Maharashtra, the state worst affected state by the coronavirus.

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Mumbai has reported 4,192 fresh coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours. As many as 82 deaths were recorded. As per news reports, people were queving up outside vaccination centres in the financial capital today.

This is not the first time that a city or a state has run out of vaccine stock, or pointed out vaccine shortage. Earlier this month, on April 7, Rajesh Tope, the health minister of Maharashtra, had warned that the state had vaccine ‘stocks to last only 3 days’. Several vaccination centres in the state had run out of vaccine doses. 

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The same day, Naba Kisor Das, Odisha’s health minister, wrote to the Union health minister, Harsh Vardhan, informing him that by April 9, the state would have exhausted its stock of Covishield. He asked for a supply of at least 10 days stock — 2.5 million vaccine doses. The letter also informed the central government that “due to shortage of vaccine, we have had to close nearly 700 vaccination centres in the State”. Of the total 1,400 functional sites for vaccination, only 755 were active on April 7.

Similar reports of vaccine shortage had been pouring from other states such as Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi. But, the Union health minister, Harsh Vardhan, in his statement issued on April 7, said that “allegations of vaccine shortage are utterly baseless”.

Also Read: ‘Allegations of vaccine shortage are utterly baseless’: Health Minister Harsh Vardhan