BENGALURU: Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar on Friday met Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in New Delhi along with Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and sought additional fund allocation under the National Health Mission (NHM) for upgradation of primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across Karnataka.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Dr Sudhakar said, “The state has an inventory of over 50 lakh doses of vaccines and has achieved 82% coverage of the first dose and 37% coverage of second dose among the eligible population. The State Government is planning to upgrade and modernise all PHCs in the state and we have sought additional funds under NHM to implement it. The Centre has responded positively to our request. We also discussed about strengthening trauma care, secondary and tertiary care in all districts across the state,” he said.
Sudhakar had earlier stated that he aims to upgrade 250 PHCs per year under the NHM to ensure better quality of health care to people with the addition of doctors and nurses and better infrastructure. He also pointed out that the State Government was awaiting the Centre’s guidelines on vaccination for children. “The children’s vaccine is in the trial phase and the Centre will soon decide after discussing with vaccine manufacturers. We must not let our guard down against the pandemic and the state has released guidelines for the festival season too. We are continuing to conduct about one lakh tests every day and the positivity rate is less than 0.4%. So there is no need to panic,” he said.
Bommai updated the Union Health Minister on the state’s measures on the Covid-19 front, and said the vaccination target by December-end is to give the first dose to 90 per cent of eligible persons and the second dose to at least to 70 per cent. Bommai said Mandaviya will be in Bengaluru on October 10 and will review the state’s health infrastructure.