BHUBANESWAR: THE Odisha Government on Friday received 1.5 lakh doses of Covaxin vaccine from Bharat Biotech as the first consignment of the State’s own procurement for free vaccination of 18 to 44 years age group.Additional Chief Secretary of Health PK Mohapatra said the vaccine will be administered to age-appropriate people in Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation limits for which slots will be opened on CoWIN portal for sessions to be held from Monday onwards.
“However, the State will have a trial symbolic commencement of the free vaccination of 18-44 years age group with inoculation of a few beneficiaries on Saturday. There will be no full fledged vaccination in the weekend in view of the lockdown in the urban areas of the State,” he informed. As many as 81,161 people were administered vaccines through 451 session sites on Friday. Meanwhile, the government on Friday demanded that Centre should immediately supply at least 25 lakh doses of Covishield to continue with the sessions regularly.
“I am to reiterate my request to urgently supply at least 25 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine in a single lot to enable us to ensure second dose vaccination of people aged 45 years and above and to conduct sessions regularly across the State,” Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das wrote to Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan on Friday.
Stating that Odisha is facing a crsis due to very low and erratic supply of Covishield vaccine, the Minister said that till date the State has received 53,32,870 doses and the stock available now is only 1.05 lakh. The Minister said that between April 20 and 29, Odisha received only 2.9 lakh doses of Covishield in three allocations which was inadequate.
