After being accused of wasting one-third of the Covid-19 vaccine doses made available to them, the governments of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have denied the allegations, claiming that the data is “incorrect.”
In a review meeting on the vaccination drive’s progress, the Union Health Ministry said Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand had reported 30.2 percent vaccine wastage, which is higher than the national average of 6.3 percent.
“Whereas states have been urged repeatedly to keep vaccine wastage below 1 per cent, many states such as Jharkhand (37.3 per cent), Chhattisgarh (30.2 per cent), Tamil Nadu (15.5 per cent), Jammu and Kashmir (10.8 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (10.7 per cent) are reporting much higher wastage than the national average (6.3 per cent),” the Union Health Ministry had said.
Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel shares Covid-19 vaccine wastage figures
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s office denied the Centre’s charges on Twitter. He also posted the letter sent to Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan in the previous week along with the “actual percentage of vaccine wastage”.
“This data is incorrect. We have already written to @MoHFW_INDIA (Union health ministry) regarding the same. Our team is in touch with @MoHFW_INDIA to resolve the data issues,” CM Baghel posted on Twitter.
Chhattisgarh health minister TS Singh Deo also rejected the Centre’s claim that the state was reporting a high wastage of Covid-19 vaccines.
“This is laughable. During our previous meeting with the Union Health Minister, it was pointed out to the Union government that these are not the correct figures. We had asked them to correct them fearing that questions would be raised in the media. They had said that those figures won’t be released to the media and today I understand they have released some half-baked information,” he said.
Dr. Alok Shukla, the state’s principal secretary for health, said the data is incorrect, and his department has written to the Centre requesting that it be updated at their level.
