THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Covid vaccination in the state has been dragging due to constraints of lockdown and diminishing stock level. While the vaccination for people in 18-44 age group was hampered due to the delays in making online registration proper, the vaccination of people above 45 years was stuck due to shortage of vaccine. The state uses the vaccines purchased from the market for the former category, while the latter gets vaccines allocated by the Central government.
The vaccination of people with comorbidities among 18-44 age group was started on Monday (May 17) and only 3,285 persons managed to get the first dose on the first day. Though the health department claimed that the second day was better, it was nowhere near the desired numbers. The department attributed to the low turnout to the difficulties in uploading the documents to prove co-morbidities.
“I think it is a temporary issue because of the constraints of lockdown. Many people do not have access to centres for uploading their documents. I am sure that the numbers will pick up in the coming days,” said Director of Health Services Dr Ramesh R.
The department has amped up the information, education and communication campaigns to help the public get the medical certificates in the prescribed format and upload them for approval, he said. The state has already purchased around four lakh vaccine doses for the 18-44 age group. It is estimated that 1,50,66,820 people belong to this category.
Meanwhile, the stock for people aged above 45 has diminished below 50,000 doses forcing the department to slow down the inoculation. The delay in the arrival of new stocks has been dragging the vaccination for the segment for the past four days. Overall, the department operated just 671 centres to vaccinate over 50,000 people in total on Tuesday.