THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Amid the rapid spread of the pandemic, the state’s health sector is heading towards a crisis with severe shortage of vaccines. As of now, the state only has only less than five lakh doses of vaccines. Due to the shortage of vaccine doses, most of the mega vaccination centres in the state have been closed down. Even the private sector is reeling under severe vaccine scarcity.

The districts which are facing acute vaccine shortage is Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam. Only 1,500 doses of Covishield is left in Thiruvananthapuram. The vaccination drive is being carried out only in a few wards. The vaccination drive in Jimmy George stadium has been halted. As the camps have run out of stock, most people are going back to their homes without getting vaccinated.

All camps in the Kollam district have been fully run out of stock. Even though 10,000 vaccine doses reached in the district yesterday, by afternoon all of it were fully distributed. Now the cause of concern is, those who should be given the second dose of vaccine, cannot be vaccinated in this situation.

Huge rush is witnessed in most of the vaccine distribution centres in Kottayam. Eight mega vaccination centres are organised in the district. In most of these camps, authorities are not able to regulate the rush of the people.

Whereas in Eranakulam the vaccination drive is going on at 113 centres. With the arrival of the new batch of vaccines, issues witnessed on the last day due to vaccine scarcity were resolved.

In Kozhikode, many are returning their homes from the camps without getting vaccinated. Authorities have said that they will only issue 100 tokens per day. In most centres, 100 tokens were distributed by morning itself. Even though health minister K K Shylaja has demanded the centre to dispatch another 50 lakh vaccines, no response has come from the centre yet.