Covid-19 vaccine war erupts between Centre and Maharashtra

A major vaccine war seems to have broken out between the Centre and the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of Maharashtra – which are at loggerheads for over 15 months on multiple issues.

A day after Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan launched a blistering attack accusing the Maharashtra government of bogging down India’s efforts in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government reiterated its demand for additional vaccine stock and rapid supply and compared its position with other states including those ruled by the BJP.

Also read — Gujarat half the size of Maharashtra but gets same number of Covid-19 vaccine doses: Tope

During a media interaction, state Health and Family Welfare Minister Rajesh Tope compared its position with neighbouring Gujarat vis-à-vis vaccination programme and with Uttar Pradesh on the ratio between RT-PCR and RAT.

On the supplies of Covishield and Covaxin, he said that the supply is far less than the demand. “Our demand is 40 lakh per week, we have scaled up to the level of 5 lakh plus doses. We will keep it steady at the level of 6 lakh doses per day but for this, we need 40 lakh vaccines per week, that’s it, please give it,” Tope said.

Also read — Maharashtra needs at least 40 lakh vaccines per week: Rajesh Tope

According to him, the need has been conveyed by him during the video-conference meeting with health ministers chaired by the central minister, through official correspondences and even NCP supremo Sharad Pawar personally spoke to Dr Vardhan. “I raised the issue of discrimination with us. We have the most number of active patients, positivity rate and death with a 12 crore population. Why are we given so few vaccines?" he said.

Comparing with Gujarat, he said, “Maharashtra is a big state, geographically and population-wise. We have a population of 12 crore and we got 1.04 crore vaccines so far, but if we compare it with Gujarat, it has a population of 6 crore, nearly half of our state's size, but it got 1 crore vaccines.”

Tope pointed out that if one looks at cases per million population, Maharashtra fares much better than other states.

Tope also said that a majority of vaccination centres in Sangli, Satara, Buldhana have been closed and Mumbai is feeling the shortage. “We have stocks only for one to one-and-a-half days. I have just got the news that we have received some additional stocks, around 7.5 lakh doses,” he said, pointing out that Uttar Pradesh was supplied with 48 lakh doses, Madhya Pradesh with 40 lakh doses, Gujarat with 30 lakh doses and Haryana with 24 lakh doses per week.

Tope said that the state has not fallen short in following norms. “We are strictly following the 70:30 ratio of RT-PCR and RAT tests. In the case of Uttar Pradesh, it is completely otherwise….90:10 ratio of RAT and RT-PCR,” he said.

Tope also pointed out that the tests in Maharashtra per million population are the highest in the country.