Jharkhand received an additional 58,590 doses of Covaxin from the Centre on Wednesday after it raised an alarm over dwindling stocks with the Centre, but several jab sites in Ranchi and elsewhere could not function as was apprehended by state health authorities.

The additional doses will help Jharkhand get through the next two days as the state expects at least 6 lakh vaccine doses from the Centre on July 2, health officials said.

According to a health official, Jharkhand was left with around 35,000 doses on Tuesday night. “After receiving the additional supply of 58,590 doses from the Centre, we had over 90,000 doses in stalk. This figure will drop after we get Wednesday's vaccination data,” he said.

However, several vaccination centres in Ranchi remained non-operational on Wednesday due to the shortage of vaccines. Ranchi civil surgeon Dr Vinod Kumar said that barring four sites – Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), CCL Hospital, Bandobasti Karyalaya and Nepal House – all the remaining jab sites did not administer vaccines on the day.

“We have more than 90 session sites in Ranchi and most of them were non-operational today (Wednesday) due to the shortage of vaccines,” said Dr Kumar, adding that the sites will resume vaccination once fresh doses are supplied to the district.

People return without getting jabs due to the crisis, from Red cross building vaccination centre , in Dhanbad on Wednesday. Shabbir Hussain

Similarly, several sites in Bokaro, East Singhbhum, Dhanbad and other districts of the state either did not administer vaccines at all or vaccinated only a limited number of people, officials admitted.

In order to ensure uninterrupted vaccination across the state, the health department distributed the fresh lot of vaccines to districts on Wednesday. It has decided to keep vaccine stores open through the night so that vaccination centres can collect vials allotted to them, officials said.

As per data shared by the health department, Ranchi received 5,400 vaccine doses from the additional vaccines supplied from the Centre for crisis management. East Singhbhum and Dhanbad received 4,500 doses each, while 3,000 doses were given to West Singhbhum. Hazaribaghreceived at least 5,800 doses from the additional lot.

“We had informed the Centre about the shortage of vaccines earlier, and the Centre was quick to provide additional doses of vaccines to us today (Wednesday) itself,” said Dr Siddharth Tripathi, the nodal officer for health department’s Information, Education and Communication (IEC) wing. “The additional doses will help us continue vaccination across the state until we receive fresh stocks for July,” he added.

Jharkhand has been assured 25 lakh doses of vaccines in July. Of this, 6 lakh doses are xpected on July 2, health officials said.

An official involved in the immunisation programme said the state had 82,652 doses of vaccine in stock before the vaccination started on Tuesday. About 47,000 people were administered vaccines on Tuesday, which meant around 35,000 doses were left. On Monday, 87,639 vaccine doses were administered.

On an average, vaccines were administered to over 1 lakh beneficiaries every day last week. The state, officials said, will continue the vaccination programme in all the 3,377 government-run vaccination centres but administer fewer doses until fresh supplies arrive.

As per records with the state health department, Jharkhand has so far received 69,41,260 doses of vaccines and used 68,30,995 of them by Tuesday evening. Officials estimated that over 50,000 people were administered jabs on Wednesday. But final figures will be known on Thursday.