Bhubaneswar: The state government Monday urged the Centre to immediately supply at least 6 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine in order to ensure an uninterrupted inoculation drive in the month of June.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das has written to the Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, in this regard.
As per allocation for June (2nd fortnight), the state has received 13,78,310 doses of Covishield which have been sent to all the districts.
“As of today, we have a stock of 3.38 lakh Covishield doses, which will last for two days. Thus, Covishield doses will be out of stock in the state from Tuesday onwards. In this situation, it will not be possible to conduct sessions in the state after Tuesday,” Das said in his letter.
Therefore, Das urged Vardhan to allocate additional 6 lakh doses of Covishield to the state for the month of June in order to ensure smooth vaccination sessions.
For July 2021, the Centre has indicated an allocation of 25.31 lakh vaccine doses, but no consignment has reached Odisha so far. Therefore, the state requested the Union Minister to provide vaccines in advance to prevent any event of stock-out.
Since January 16, the state has administered 1.14 crore vaccine doses and maintained wastage of 3 per cent while saving 2.9 lakh doses. Since June 21, Odisha is vaccinating an average of 3 lakh citizens per day and the state is having the capacity to vaccinate 3.5 lakh doses each day, the minister pointed out.