Several hospitals in Kolkata have decided to stop Covid vaccination because of a drastic drop in demand.
Also, at a number of hospitals, monoclonal antibody cocktail drugs for Covid have been lying unused for months.
The Telegraph spoke to officials of several hospitals and doctors to find out about their stocks:
Vaccines
The Covid vaccination footfall has been dwindling for several months now and almost all private hospitals have not procured doses for long.
Several hospitals that have exhausted their stocks of Covid vaccines have decided against placing fresh orders. Officials at the hospitals said they have resolved to stop the Covid vaccination programme.
The RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences stopped administering Covishield a month ago.
After Saturday, the hospital will stop Covid vaccination for the time being because its Covaxin stocks will also be exhausted.
“We have 110 doses of Covaxin left, which will be administered at a free camp on Saturday. After that, we will have zero stock of Covid vaccines,” said R. Venkatesh, COO, east and south, Narayana Health, which runs the RN Tagore hospital.
“There is absolutely no demand for Covid vaccines. For several weeks there has been no footfall,” he said. Charnock Hospital, too, has stopped Covid vaccination programme because of lack of demand.
“We have not been administering Covid vaccines for the last couple of months because of lack of demand. We have not procured fresh stocks,” said Ipsita Kundu, CEO of Charnock Hospital.
As the demand for Covid vaccination has gone down, Serum Institute of India (SII) has stopped production of Covishield. Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer of SII, recently said the company stopped Covishield production in December 2021 because it had “a few hundred million doses in stock, out of which 100 million doses had expired at that time.”
Some of the hospitals are left with doses which are nearing expiry. Belle Vue Clinic has 90 doses of Covaxin left. They can no longer be used after November.
“The manufacturer has promised to replace the doses with fresh ones. Also, we have 130 doses of Covishield, which will expire in February next year. We are hoping to exhaust the stocks by then,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO of Belle Vue. Peerless Hospital still has 850 doses of Covishield left.
“We are still administering 25 to 30 doses every day,” said Sudipta Mitra, chief executive of Peerless Hospital.
“We are expecting the government to announce another booster dose. If that happens, our stocks will be exhausted,” he said.
On Friday, only 448 people took Covid vaccines across Bengal, according to the state health department. Although 73,027,181 people have taken the first dose and 64,925,988 the second dose, only 15,234,957 have taken the booster shot till Friday.
The state government does not have any intention to stop vaccinations. It is getting free supply from the Centre, said an official of the health department.
Monoclonal antibody
Monoclonal antibody cocktail drugs are also lying unused at many hospitals.
“Monoclonal antibody cocktail drugs would work on the surface antigen of the coronavirus and it gets inactivated. So, the virus cannot infect new cells and the replication stops. However, as for the omicron variant, the new strain is deficient of that particular antigen. Hence, the cocktail drug does not work. It cannot be used to treat any other infection as of now,” said Sauren Panja, head of critical care unit at the RN Tagore hospital.
The hospital has four vials — eight doses — of the drug, which was last used in July, said an official of the hospital.
Belle Vue has 45 doses of the drug left, which was last used in March.
“The doses will expire in March. The manufacturer has promised to replace the doses or take them back,” said Tondon, CEO of Belle Vue. Peerless Hospital has around 25 doses.
“In the last few weeks, we had two Covid patients asking for the cocktail drug,” said hospital chief executive Sudipta Mitra.
