Telangana Health Minister T Harish Rao has written to Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya requesting supply of at least 50 lakh doses of Covishield vaccines to the State to ramp up the pace of the precautionary dose administration.
In a letter addressed to the union minister on August 8, Rao said that the Telangana government had decided to take up a massive drive to administer precautionary doses to the eligible population.
"Currently Telangana is administering about 1.5 lakh doses per day. However, based on the demand there is a potential to administer over 3 lakh precautionary doses per day which the State is not able to meet as there is shortage of vaccine supplies, particularly Covishield," Rao said in the letter.
He said that the State had only 2.7 lakh doses of Covishield, which were not sufficient for even two days.
Rao further wrote, "Telangana is receiving vaccines in only small quantities even after continuous requests from the State, due to which there has been an inability to ramp up vaccination from the present levels. I request you to supply at least 50 lakh doses of Covishield to Telangana urgently to enable the State to ramp up the pace of precautionary doses."
The COVID vaccine first dose coverage for people above 18 years in the State is at 106%, and the second dose coverage is 104%.
filed in:Healthcare, Centre, Epidemics, Health, Vaccinations, Coronavirus