BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Government once again urged the Union Health Ministry to supply adequate quantities of vaccine as the state has been facing an acute shortage for the last over a week.
While there is nil stock of Covishield vaccine in the State, Regional and District stores and only 1,74,004 doses of Covishield and 2,49,196 doses of Covaxin are available in cold chain points in the state, the balance stock of Covishield will last for one day only.
The vaccination has been badly affected on Friday as only 700 sites of 1476 are open for inoculation of age-appropriate people in 29 districts. It is no vaccination day for Koraput district due to the non-availability of vaccines.
Health officials said Odisha required more doses of Covishield as the vaccine has been approved for the entire state while Covaxin has been allowed for Bhubaneswar only.
Citing extremely low and intermittent supply of Covid vaccines to the state, Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das has requested Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan to allot 25 lakh doses of Covishield in a single lot for the next 10 days.
Of the 50,79,650 doses of vaccines, including 45,42,870 doses of Covishield and 5,36,780 doses of Covaxin received so far, the state has administered 48,10,780 doses.
The Health Minister said even as the state is prepared to undertake three lakh vaccinations daily, it is not possible due to scanty supply. "Odisha is being allocated two to three lakh vaccine doses in a gap of two days. Since it takes about three days to transfer vaccine from the state vaccine store to cold chain points in the far off districts, there is stock out situation in several districts due to such intermittent supply," Das pointed out.
The state is expected to get around 3 lakh doses of Covishield by 3 pm. Director of Family Welfare Dr Bijay Panigrahi said the inoculation drive will be grossly affected for the next couple of days as it will take at least a day to dispatch the vaccine to the districts.
On Thursday, vaccination was conducted at 1050 centres as 426 sites were shut down due to the non-availability of vaccines. As many as 1,54,330 beneficiaries were administered vaccines.
The vaccination had come to a complete halt in 11 districts on Tuesday and 10 districts on Wednesday as all session sites in these districts were shut in the absence of Covishield.