The Jharkhand government directed three districts to part with at least 6,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines from their share to Ranchi in a bid to manage the vaccine crisis in the state capital, which according to the Co-Win portal, had only 13 operational sites on Thursday.

As per data available on the Co-Win platform, only 449 of the 3,377 vaccination sites were operational on Thursday in Jharkhand. Although the state was yet to release the final data of vaccine doses administered on the day, at least 19,066 residents were inoculated by 5pm. The data on the Co-Win dashboard, however, was subject to change as updates were sent from different districts till midnight, officials said.

Using the power of vaccine redistribution vested upon the state government by the Centre, Ranchi called for stocks from Dumka, Palamau and Sahebganj.

Dumka was asked to provide 1,000 Covishield and the same number of Covaxin doses from its share, a letter from the health department stated. Palamau was directed to provide 750 doses each of Covishield and Covaxin to the state capital, while Sahebganj was asked to give away 1,500 doses of Covishield to Ranchi from its share.

Ranchi civil surgeon Dr Vinod Kumar admitted that the state capital was facing an acute shortage of Covid-19 vaccines and most of the session sites for vaccination here remained non-operational on Thursday.

“We have not received the vaccines from Dumka, Palamau and Sahibganj yet. And there is no update on fresh supplies arriving from New Delhi as of now,” said Dr Kumar, adding that the spare vaccines from other districts could only be used for temporary management of the situation and the district would require fresh supplies from the Centre at the earliest.

Naman Priyesh Lakra, officer on special duty for Covid-19 vaccination, said that the state was expecting delivery of 1 lakh Covaxin doses on Friday and at least 2.5 lakh doses of Covishield on July 15.

As per data shared by the National Health Mission (NHM), Jharkhand had 47,210 vaccine doses in stock on Thursday evening. The state has so far received 75,54,340 vaccine doses and used 75,16,008 of them. At least 9,987 doses were wasted, as per government data.

This is the second time that Jharkhand is facing a crisis of vaccines this month. Earlier, on July 1, the state had to cut down on vaccination across 24 districts due to vaccine shortage. On July 2, Jharkhand received around 6 lakh doses of vaccines from the Centre. From July 3 to July 6, the state vaccinated at least 1 lakh beneficiaries every day, as per government data.