Odisha seeks 25 lakh doses of Covishield from Centre
Bhubaneswar: Amid suspension of COVID-19 vaccination drive in several districts of Odisha due to shortage of vaccine, Odisha Health Minister Naba Das today wrote to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan urging the latter for supplying at least 25 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine to the state.
“I reiterate my request to urgently supply at least 25 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine in a single lot as an emergency in order to enable us to ensure 2nd dose vaccination of people aged 45 years & above and to conduct sessions regularly across the state,” wrote Das in the letter.
RELATED
“Till date (30.04.2021), Odisha has received 53,32,870 doses of Covishield vaccine and balance stock available in pipeline across the State is 1.06 lakh jabs (as on 29th April 2021). Between 20th to 29th April, the State has received only 2.9 lakh doses of Covishield in three allocations, which is very low in quantity for the State to conduct vaccination sessions smoothly,” he said.
“Due to such short supply, the vaccination sessions could not be conducted in more than 1100 session sites each day in the recent past and our daily achievement has drastically declined. Till date, we have vaccinated 43,02,094 beneficiaries aged 45 years & above with 1st dose and 5,04,358 beneficiaries with 2nd dose. As on 29 April 2021, 7,52,590 beneficiaries aged 45 years & above are already due for 2nd dose Covishield, but due to erratic & inadequate supply, we could not vaccinate them in time,” Das added.
Comments are closed.