Bhubaneswar: To ensure second dose of vaccine to people aged 45 years and above, the Odisha government on Friday asked the Centre to urgently supply at least 25 lakh doses of Covishield in a single lot.
Odisha Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das on Friday wrote a letter to the Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.
Das in his letter said that Odisha is facing a crisis due to extremely low and erratic supply of Covishield vaccines to the state.
Due to such short supply, the vaccination sessions could not be conducted in more than 1100 sites each day in the recent past and our daily achievement has drastically declined from 2.71 lakh on April 3 to 0.27 lakh people on 29th April, 2021.
Till date the state has vaccinated 43,02,094 beneficiaries aged 45 years and above with the first dose and 5,04,358 beneficiaries with the second dose, he said.
As on April 29, 7,52,590 beneficiaries aged 45 years and above were already due for second dose of Covishield, but due to erratic and inadequate supply we could not vaccinate them in time, the minister said in his letter.
Sharing data on vaccines received by the state, Das said the state has received 53,32,870 doses of Covishield vaccine till date and balance stock available in the pipeline is 1.06 lakh.
Between 20th and 29th of April, the state has received only 2.9 lakh doses of Covishield in three allocations, which is very inadequate for the state to conduct vaccination sessions smoothly, he added.
In view of the weekend shutdown in urban areas, there will be no vaccination in the state for the next two days viz Saturday and Sunday.
Meanwhile, Odisha has received 1.5 lakh doses of Covaxin Vaccine, as the first consignment of State’s own procurement for vaccination of 18-44 years age-group.
“This vaccine will be used in Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation limits for which slots will be opened on COWIN for sessions to be held from Monday, 3rd May onwards,” the health department informed.