Delhi Vaccination | Not enough vaccines for 18-44 age group: Satyendar Jain

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The health minister of Delhi, Satyendar Jain on Thursday, said that the city does not have enough vaccines for the inoculation of people in the 18 to 44 age bracket. He said that the state government had already placed purchase orders of vaccines with the manufacturers.

He told the reporters, “At present, we don’t have vaccines. We have requested the companies to provide it.”

The minister, however, said preparations to give jabs to this category have been completed.

Recently the Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal had announced that the state will administer free of cost covid-19 vaccines to everybody aged above 18. He said that his government had approved the procurement of 1.34 crore vaccine doses from various manufacturers.

The vaccine will be delivered to the Delhi government in phases. The private hospitals will have to procure vaccines directly from manufacturers. While the Centre will continue to provide vaccines for those aged above 45.

The health minister also said that the decrease in the number of testing from the last few days is due to the restricted movement of people due to the lockdown.

The health authorities in the capital have been conducting around 75,000 tests a day over the last few days. Before that, the average number of tests was around 1 lakh.

Jain also commented on the allegation made by opposition on the huge difference in the death figures from the data compiled by the state government and the crematorium. He said, “This is not the time to play politics. They had raised the issue six months ago also. Everything was fine.” He further added, “Who has the right to hide the number of deaths? Everything is being done in a transparent manner in Delhi.”

The minister also agreed to the few discrepancies in the health bulletin issued on the evening of 28th April and assured that they were revised.