Policemen patrol Srinagar’s Lal Chowk area during the lockdown on Friday | PTI
SRINAGAR: Kashmir is facing a severe shortage of vaccines as not new supplies have been delivered in the last few days. The situation is so dire that authorities said the state will suspend vaccination for even those above 45 years of age on Saturday, if fresh supplies are not received from the Serum Institute.
Authorities say all supplies have been exhausted and no fresh stock has been delivered in the last few days. “Whatever supplies we got, we have exhausted them all. We had a few thousand vaccines doses left, and these were administered to people today (Friday). As of now, we don’t have any vaccine doses available for Saturday,” an official said.
Only 13,407 people were vaccinated in the Valley on Friday as against more than 31,000 in Jammu region.
Officials are hopeful of receiving about 1.84 lakh doses of Covisheild vaccine from the Serum Institute soon. “In case we don’t receive the supply by tomorrow morning, then we will have to suspend the vaccination drive across Kashmir tomorrow,” he said.
At present, there are 927 vaccination centres in the Valley, where the vaccines are being administered to people above the age of 45. However, since Thursday people have been returning without getting vaccinated due to the shortage. Some hospitals in Srinagar have put up notice saying vaccines are out of stock. With even those in the 45+ category struggling to get vaccinated, the government has decided not to begin vaccinating those over the age of 18 from Saturday.
330 arrested for violating lockdown
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