Bhubaneswar: Odisha Health Minister Naba Kishore Das on Monday shot another letter to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan requesting to supply 25 lakh doses of vaccine to the state.
This is the second time in a week that Minister Naba Das has urged the Centre to immediately supply the vaccine doses to Odisha as the state is facing a crisis due to the extremely low and erratic supply of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Health Minister Naba Das apprised Dr Vardhan that Odisha received 46,08,650 doses of vaccine, out of which, 42,71,870 doses are of Covishield vaccine and 3,36780 are of Covaxine vaccine.
Presently, there is nil stock of vaccine in SVS, RVS and DVS and 1,59,439 doses of Covishield and 71,010 doses of Covaxine are available in the pipeline across the state, the Health Minister informed and stated that the balance stock of Covishield will last for one day only.
Minister Das also informed the Centre that due to shortage of vaccine supply, the Odisha government was forced to close over 700 vaccination centres and the vaccine session could not be scheduled in advance resulting in 1 lakh daily utilization of vaccines while the actual capacity for vaccinations is 3 lakh daily.
On the other hand, the Tika Utsav also could not be observed in Odisha due to the short supply of Covishield vaccine.
The Odisha Health Minister reiterated the demand for supply of at least 10 days stock of Covishield vaccine (25 lakh doses) as an emergency measure to enable the state government to plan session and undertake the vaccination programme effectively.