Citinga current demand of more than 2 lakh Covid vaccine doses for the second dosealone, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday demanded 40lakh more doses from the Centre on urgent basis to inoculate the state’seligible population.
Thestate was expecting 2.46 lakhs vaccines to arrive today but the Chief Minister,during a Covid review virtual meeting, noted that vaccine remains in shortsupply, having run out of Covishield vaccine and left with a mere 3500 Covaxindoses as of Monday.
Punjabhas already vaccinated more than 90 lakh eligible persons (nearly 37 % ofeligible population) and has been utilising the stock without any wastage, saidthe Chief Minister. While the 1st dose has been administered to 75 lakh people,15 lakh had got the second dose too.
TheCentre needs to arrange for immediate delivery to the state to meet theshortfall and enable inoculation of all those needing the second dose, whilecontinuing with the vaccination of other eligible persons, said the ChiefMinister.
Pointingout that the doses being supplied to private hospitals were getting wasted aspeople preferred to go to government hospitals for free inoculation, HealthSecretary Hussan Lal informed the meeting that the state has sought diversionof the stocks from the private hospitals but had not received any response so farfrom the Centre.