Covid Fightback: Odisha Gets Over 9 Lakh Covishield Doses

A day after Odisha government curtailed the mass vaccination programme in the State in the wake of acute shortage of doses, around 9.43 lakh jabs of Covishield vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute of India reached the State on Friday.

A tranch of at least 1 lakh Covishield and 1.82 lakh Covaxin vaccine doses manufactured by Bharat Biotech were also dispatched to the State yesterday. Government sources said the arrival of the fresh tranch of vaccines will help streamline the inoculation programme in the State.

State Health Department Additional Chief Secretary PK Mohapatra on Thursday informed that the State urgently needs at least 9 million doses of Covid vaccines to meet the daily target of administering 3 lakh jabs in the month of July.

Due to an erratic supply of vaccines, the State government had to suspend the vaccination programme in as many as 17 districts including four districts with high positivity rate - Balasore, Bhadrak, Cuttack and Kendrapara during the last two days.

While the government is aiming to administer over 60 million doses to vaccinate all persons above 18 years of age before the arrival of a likely third wave of the Covid pandemic but so far it has vaccinated 11.9 million doses as of July 1.

As per the data available with the Health Department, around 9696842 people have been administered 1st dose of vaccine while 2223931 people have been completely vaccinated against the disease with double doses.

A total of 901160 have received 1st of Covaxin and 8795682 have been administered 1st dose of Covishied. Similarly, two jabs of Covaxin vaccines have been inoculated on 505804 people and 1718127 people have taken double doses of Covishield.

Odisha has recorded a cumulative figure of 916109 Covid positive cases till now with 3222 fresh cases on Friday. The death toll has climbed up to 4109 after 46 more fatalities in the last one day.