Even as Odisha braces up for an imminent third wave of Covid-19 pandemic, the State is now faced with an acute shortage of vaccines which are crucial in containing the infection.
As per official sources, the ongoing vaccination drive in 16 districts has been stopped owing to shortage of Covid vaccines.
Bijay Panigrahi, Director Family Welfare, on Thursday said that Odisha could vaccinate only 49,000 beneficiaries against the set target of 3 lakh on Wednesday.
Also Read
According to Panigrahi, the State is now having a stock of 19,000 Covishield and 3 lakh plus doses of Covaxin vaccines.
Covaxin is being used to inoculate people in Bhubaneswar while Covisheild is used across districts in the State.
The present stock of Covisheild is not enough to carry out the inoculation drive across the State.
The vaccination drive is continuing at 114 session sites in the State today including 72 in Bhubaneswar.
“At present, we are facing a shortage of vaccines. We could only vaccinate 49,000 people in the State yesterday. The vaccination drive in 16 districts has been stopped” said Panigrahi.
Panigrahi further informed that the target to vaccinate 3 lakh people day in various session sites is not possible due to shortage of vaccines.
“Yesterday, we had received information that1 lakh doses of Covieshiled is likely to arrive today. We have already received the vaccines for the month of June. As the State had targeted to vaccinate 3 lakh beneficiaries per day under the revised policy, the ongoing drive will be affected in the coming days if vaccines do not reach today,” Panigrahi added.
Earlier, the State Health Minister Naba Das had urged the Union Health & Family Welfare Minister to supply additional 6 lakh doses of Covid vaccines.
Odisha received 13,78,310 doses of Covishield as per the allocation for June (2nd fortnight). It is pertinent to mention here that since January 16, Odisha has administered 1.14 crore doses of vaccines to citizens and maintained a negative wastage of 3 per cent while saving 2.9 lakh doses.
Since June 21, Odisha is vaccinating, on an average, 3 lakh citizens per day and the State has a capacity to vaccinate 3.5 lakh citizens per day, Naba Das wrote in a letter to the Centre.