Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday said that Bharat Biotech has refused the required doses of its Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin to Delhi. The Delhi Government had given an order for 67 lakh doses each of Covaxin and Covidshield after the Centre liberalised the process to allow States to directly procure 50 per cent of its requirement from vaccine manufacturers. However, Bharat Biotech has written to Delhi government expressing its inability to make any “additional supplies” of Covaxin as required by the national capital, he said.

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Delhi was pinning its hopes on the supply of 1.34 crore-67 lakhs each of Covaxin and Covishield-doses to achieve its aim of vaccinating all eligible beneficiaries in Delhi in next three months. However, Bharat Biotech cited limited availability of vaccine in wake of huge demand. “Covaxin (Bharat Biotech) wrote to us yesterday that they can’t provide the doses. They said they were making dispatches as per directives of concerned government officials”, Sisodia said, adding that the apparent reference here was to the Central government and its officials.

Forced to shutdown 100 centres

With no additional supplies of Covaxin expected, Delhi has now been forced to shutdown 100 Covaxin vaccination sites in 17 schools due to no supply, Sisodia said.

Sisodia had on Tuesday announced that Delhi government will float a global tender for procuring Covid vaccines even as he accused the BJP-ruled Centre of forcing state governments to compete among themselves in the international market for anti-Covid shots.

Only three vaccines have been approved by the Centre to be sold in India – – Covaxin, Covishield and Sputnik V. Asserting that there was vaccine mismanagement by the Centre, Sisodia said that exporting 6.3 crore doses of vaccine was the biggest mistake when the people in India were struggling to get access to these vaccines during the ongoing second wave of the pandemic.

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