Kanchan Gupta, the veteran journalist and senior adviser to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, took to Twitter on October 8, Saturday, to call out the Times of India (TOI) newspaper for its false and malicious report on the availability of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) in India.
In a series of tweets, the veteran journalist shared a screenshot of a TOI report dated October 7, 2022, titled “Pneumococcal vaccine shortage impacts jab schedule across India.” Alongside, he also shared some facts and figures to prove how TOI was disseminating false information about the shortage of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) in India to discredit the central government.
Kanchan in his first Tweet called out TOI for publishing the fake news. He asserted that TOI’s report alleging a shortage of PCV was ‘mendacious, misleading and motivated’.
#FakeNews Alert!@timesofindia ‘report’ alleging shortage of pneumococcal vaccine (PCV) is mendacious, misleading and motivated.
— Kanchan Gupta 🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) October 8, 2022
Facts:
👉70.18 lakh doses of PCV available with all States/UTs.
👉3.27 crore PCV doses supplied by Centre have been used January to September 2022.
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“#FakeNews Alert! @timesofindia ‘report’ alleging shortage of pneumococcal vaccine (PCV) is mendacious, misleading and motivated. Facts: 70.18 lakh doses of PCV available with all States/UTs. 3.27 crore PCV doses supplied by Centre have been used January to September 2022,” read his tweet.
In his second tweet, Kanchan Gupta shared some more data available in the public domain and lambasted the media outlet for publishing a story that is “ill-informed and provides erroneous information.”
The senior adviser to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting informed how contrary to the claims made by TOI, sufficient doses (70.18 lakh) of PCV are available in all States and Union territories and that Maharashtra had a sufficient stock of 3.01 lakh doses of PCV as on October 7, 2022. Coincidentally, the same day TOI published the report with claims that there is an acute shortage of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine meant for children in India.
The @timesofindia ‘story’ is ill-informed and provides erroneous information.
— Kanchan Gupta 🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) October 8, 2022
👉As on 7 Oct 2022, sufficient doses (70.18 lakh) of PCV are available with all States/UTs.
👉Maharashtra has stock of 3.01 lakh doses of PCV.
👉Available doses make it clear there is NO shortage.
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Kanchan Gupta asserted that according to the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare data, 3.27 crore doses of PCV that were supplied by the Central government have been utilised by all States and UTs from January to September 2022. He further informed how Maharashtra has used 18.80 lakh doses of PCV during this period.
Moreover,
— Kanchan Gupta 🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) October 8, 2022
👉PCV supplies against procurement of the vaccine for 2022-23 have also commenced to all States and UTs.
The @timesofindia and its readers would have been better informed had the paper cared to fact-check its false story before publishing it.
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“Moreover, PCV supplies against procurement of the vaccine for 2022-23 have also commenced to all States and UTs. The @timesofindia and its readers would have been better informed had the paper cared to fact-check its false story before publishing it,” added Gupta.
Notably, in a report titled “Pneumococcal vaccine shortage impacts jab schedule across India,” Times of India stated that, in addition to a shortage of HIV and leprosy drugs, India was experiencing a Pneumococcal vaccine shortage. It bemoaned how the vaccine scarcity had disrupted the vaccination schedule of tens of thousands of children across the country for more than a month.
The archived version of the TOI report can be viewed here.
TOI, further through its report, attempted to establish how the shortage was only confined to the public sector and not the private sector where there was ‘adequate supply’, insinuating that the central government was being unfair and partial by distributing vaccine doses solely to the private sector in order to generate profits.
However, by citing some pertinent facts and data, Kanchan Gupta debunked the propaganda TOI was attempting to push in order to create panic among the people.
