Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursdaydirected the Health Department to explore possibilities of floating a globaltender for the procurement of vaccines from all possible sources to ensureearly inoculation in the state. The state government will also reach outdirectly to all vaccine manufacturers for direct purchase of various Covidvaccines, including Sputnik V, Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, heannounced.
Punjab has storage space for 35 lakh Sputnik V vaccines,which require a storage temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius. The ChiefMinister said all efforts would be made for procurement of vaccines to meet theacute shortage in the state, which had received fewer than 44 lakh vaccinedoses so far from the Government ofIndia, of which only 1 lakh is currently available for use and which will alsobe exhausted within a day.
The state government was forced to stop vaccination forPhase I & Phase 2 categories in the last three days because ofnon-availability, pointed out the Chief Minister, directing all concerneddepartments to continue pursuing the matter of supply aggressively with theCentre.
As per GoI allocation for Phase III (18-44 age group),the state government has been able to buy only 3.6 lakh vaccine doses,including 63,000 received yesterday. A total of 2.3 Lakh have already beenused, leaving only 1.3 lakh for use as of now, said the Chief Minister.
Pointing out that almost 1 lakh unregistered constructionworkers and their family members had so far come forward for getting vaccinatedin line with the state government’s prioritization of vaccination for 18-44category, the Chief Minister asked the Labour Department to ensure the registrationof these workers on priority.
During the Covid review meeting, Covid Expert Group headDr. KK Talwar noted that the existing vaccines had been found to be effectiveagainst the new variants/mutants so far.
DGP Dinkar Gupta disclosed that the Punjab Police hadlost 21 personnel to Covid in the last five months, and of these, 50% were notfully vaccinated.