Jharkhand requests Centre to reduce share of vaccines to private hospitals

The additional chief secretary of Jharkhand, Arun Kumar Singh wrote to the Health Secretary of India on Monday and requested to reduce the share of vaccines to private hospitals from 25 per cent to 5 per cent for the state.

As Jharkhand is facing a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines with a state health department official on Tuesday stating that the state is left with just one day's stock of COVID-19 vaccine.

The additional chief secretary of Jharkhand also requested that at least 95 per cent of vaccines for the state should be allocated from the government route to enable equitable distribution of vaccines.

"This would also ensure adherence to the constitutional mandate of equity, equality, and reasonable opportunity for all the citizens," he added.

He argued that his demands are justified as 75 per cent of the state's population live in rural areas and has a negligible reach to private hospitals.

"Even in the city where private hospitals are available, on account of lack of purchasing power, demand for COVID-19 vaccine on payment basis is very limited as BPL population across the state is more than 37 per cent," he added.

He further added that 13 out of the 24 districts of Jharkhand have been notified as tribal districts and 19 have been listed as Left Wing Extremism (LWE) commonly known as Naxalism affected districts.

Pointing out that the demand for procurement of Covid vaccine on payment basis by the private hospitals is limited, Kumar said, "Only three private hospitals in the state ordered for vaccines in the earlier scheme of vaccination for the age group of 18 -44 years that too in minimum quantity and had to struggle to utilise the available stock of vaccine."

Meanwhile, a senior Nodal Officer said on Tuesday that the state has exhausted the available stock of vaccines and has no vaccine doses for tomorrow.

"Jharkhand is left with 82652 vials of vaccine which is sufficient enough for today only. As of now, there's 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 said.

( With inputs from ANI )

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