Chandigarh, May 24 (IANS): After Moderna, another Covid-19 vaccine manufacturer Pfizer has refused to send direct vaccination to Punjab, citing its policy to only deal with the Central government, state Nodal Officer (Vaccination) Vikas Garg said on Monday.

He said the company, in a communication to the state, said: "Pfizer is working with federal governments across the world to supply its Covid-19 vaccine for use in national immunisation programmes.

"Our supply agreements at this time are with national governments and supra-national organisations with allocation of doses and implementation within the country being a decision that governments take based on relevant health authority guidance. This approach Pfizer has followed across the world," the pharma major said.

Garg said various vaccine manufacturers, including Sputnik V, Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, were approached for direct purchase of Covid vaccines, as per the directions of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to explore possibilities of floating a global tender for the procurement of the vaccines.

He said the reply from Sputnik V and Johnson & Johnson was awaited.

The state was forced to stop vaccination for Phase I and II categories in the last three days because of non-availability of the vaccine.

Punjab has so far received about 45.3 lakh vaccine doses from the Centre.