A day after the blistering attack from the union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and I&B minister for poor vaccination management, Maharashtra Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Thursday claimed that the state has received a paltry 7.40 lakh vaccines against higher doses to other states. Tope spoke to Dr Harsh Vardhan and made a fresh appeal for the supply of more vaccine doses as the state has left with stock just for three days. He highlighted that for want vaccines in a number of districts the vaccination centres were closed.
Maharashtra needs 40 lakh vaccine doses per week but it today received merely 7.40 lakh doses. On the other hand, Uttar Pradesh received 44 lakh doses, Madhya Pradesh 33 lakh doses, Karnataka 23 lakh doses, Gujarat 16 lakh doses, Haryana 24 lakh doses and Jharkhand 20 lakh doses.
Meanwhile, state NCP chief and Minister of Water Resources Jayant Patil attacked the Centre over short supply of vaccine doses. ‘’Maharashtra has received 85 lakh vaccines but the population of Maharashtra is 12.30 crore & the number of active patients is approx 4.73 lakhs. On the other hand, Gujarat gets 80 lakh vaccines, its population is 6.50 crore & the number of active patients is approx 17,000,’’ said Patil.
‘’While Maharashtra has the highest number of patients in the country, it should get the highest number of vaccines, but this is not allowed with some purpose. It seems, some people in Delhi want the public health system in Maharashtra not to function properly,’’ he claimed.
According to Patil, the letter circulated by the Union Health Minister yesterday, is only hatred towards Maharashtra. ‘’The role of the central government is non cooperative with the MahaVikas Aghadi government as we do not have similar ideology. The Union Health Minister did not have complete information about Maharashtra or he was given incomplete information. I doubt whether attempts are being made to defame Maharashtra by issuing circulars before ascertaining the proper information of the State,’’ he noted.
Patil said Maharashtra has been witnessing an unprecedented crisis since last year. From the very beginning Maharashtra's Health Department, Health Minister Rajesh Tope and administration are fighting this crisis with vigour with limited support of the central government.
