4.64L vaccine doses for TS

Fresh stock to take care of shortage for the next few days

COVID-19 vaccine shortage in Telangana has been addressed for the next few days as it was set to receive 4.64 lakh vaccine doses on Monday night.

The State was left with only 5.66 lakh doses till Saturday evening which would have lasted only three days.

The vaccine shortage was flagged on Saturday. In fact, the vaccination drive was stopped temporarily at some private hospitals as the doses were not supplied to them.

Officials from the State Health department said since the doses were in short supply, they gave priority to government vaccination centres by either holding back further doses to some private hospitals or gave only around 50 doses. “We also took back doses from private hospitals which were receiving only five to six beneficiaries a day. And we have asked some corporate hospitals to limit their beneficiaries to around 50. They were vaccinating around 400-500 per day,” sources in the department said.

Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar wrote to Union health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Saturday stating that the State was left with only 5.66 lakh vaccine doses which would last three days at the maximum. He requested at least 30 lakh more doses of the vaccine for the State to cover the next 15 days.

On Monday, Director of Public Health G. Srinivasa Rao said that 4.64 doses were expected by night. The State had received 26.78 lakh doses so far. Of those, 22.50 lakh were exhausted.

Around one lakh people are being given the vaccine in the State every day. On Saturday, a little over 1.5 lakh beneficiaries took the vaccine. The aim is to vaccinate two lakh persons a day. According to the daily media bulletin, 21,58,837 doses have been administered, putting the vaccine wastage at 2.77%.

“Since the additional doses will be sufficient only for a few days, we would give priority to government vaccination centres,” sources in the department said.

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