Officials of the National Covid task force claim that there is no shortage of vaccines for door-to-door delivery, ahead of the proposed door-to-door vaccination drive. They are reportedly going to procure nearly 30 crore vaccines (25 crore doses of Covishield and 5 crore doses of Covaxin) from manufacturers every month for this initiative.
However, according to the national task force officials last-mile delivery of the vaccines may still be an issue. A Times of India report quotes a member of the national Covid task force, Dr NK Arora saying, “There is absolutely no shortage of vaccines for the proposed month-long door-to-door vaccination drive as the production is as per the target. Vaccine availability is no longer an issue since September. The issue is to ensure maximum coverage at the earliest.”
Dr Arora explained that their primary concern is last-mile coverage given that people from various terrains have to be reached. There are several demographics that have not been able to access the vaccination drive due to various reasons. Daily wage workers, for instance, have not been able to go to vaccination centres for the fear of losing out on a day’s work and therefore that day’s pay. And of course, there are still many who are hesitant to take the jab.
The door-to-door vaccination drive is initially starting as a month-long initiative but it will be extended to another month later. There are currently 134 million beneficiaries, who have not taken the second dose of the vaccine even though the time of prescribed interval between the first and the second dose has already passed.
While Covishield makes up 90 per cent of the vaccine doses for the door-to-door vaccination, the production of Covaxin has also been amped up by Bharat Biotech. Apart from that, Zy-CoV-D too will be added to the stockpile for the drive, says a media report. In January, three more vaccines from Biological E, Novovax and Genova Biopharma will also be added to the list of vaccines being used for the initiative.
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