Ghaziabad/Noida: Private hospitals in Noida and Ghaziabad, faced with an acute shortage of Covid vaccines, are either turning away recipients or allowing only those who have registered themselves. With about 6,200 shots of Covishield and 820 of Covaxin administered on Thursday, Noida is left with just 4,745 Covishield doses. This, sources said, may not cover the entire drive on Friday and more private facilities are expected to refuse walk-in vaccinations. In Ghaziabad, health department officials claimed to have 15,000 doses of both the vaccines, but most of them were for government hospitals.

Officials in private hospitals said they were being given just half of the doses they used to get earlier. Many of them said if the supplies didn’t improve, they would allow walk-in vaccinations only from Monday. The authorities in Noida, however, said there was enough stock to last 2 days and hoped fresh supplies would arrive by then. “There is no shortage and we will hopefully receive fresh stocks soon. Till then, we will schedule vaccination appointments based on availability,” said Suhas LY, the Noida district magistrate. In Ghaziabad, where officials claimed to have 15,000 doses in stock, several private hospitals put up signboards informing recipients they had stopped the vaccination drive for now. According to sources, the available doses of vaccine are mostly being supplied to government centres. As a result, there is a rush of people to get themselves inoculated at government hospitals.

Both Noida and Ghaziabad had last month been accused of not vaccinating enough people. The drive picked up pace after the government allowed those aged over 45 years to get themselves vaccinated. Initially, 36 private hospitals and 46 government ones were administering the vaccine in Ghaziabad. But over the past few days, several private hospitals have pulled out over depleting stocks.

For instance, Ganesh and LYF hospitals in the district have stopped the vaccination drive for now. St Joseph’s Hospital had last allowed recipients on Sunday. Officials at LYF Hospital said they had been told they would get the next stock by Friday or Saturday. Choudhury Hospital, which has vaccine stock to last this week, is hoping to get fresh supplies next week.

On Thursday, only 13 private hospitals in Ghaziabad could participate in the vaccination drive, five down from 18 a day earlier. Representatives of several private facilities in the district could be seen making rounds of the chief medical officer’s office, but coming back empty-handed.

NK Gupta, the Ghaziabad CMO, said government vaccine centres should not face any problem because the health department still had 15,000 doses left. He said he had demanded fresh supplies from the government and most of it would be directed to the private centres.

Among residents who were turned away from private vaccine centres was Sameer Jindal, who lives in Indirapuram. “My wife and I have been trying to get inoculated for the past three days. But these private hospitals are saying they don’t have enough stock,” he added. Many residents complained they could not find any slot till May. According to the health department’s figures, a total of 8,171 people took vaccine shots in Ghaziabad on Thursday, of which, only 1,117 were inoculated in private hospitals. In Noida, 7,025 people were vaccinated on Thursday.

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