Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday wrote to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan seeking an additional 50 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccines. The Chief Minister has said that the state only has vaccine stock available for three more days. Pinarayi Vijayan wrote that the issue of vaccine shortage has also been brought to the notice of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare by the Chief Secretary, as well as Principal Secretary, Health.
"So far the state has received 56,84,360 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, including 54,40,740 of Covishield and 2,43,620 of Covaxin and we have administered 48,24,505 doses till April 11. The stock which is left with us is sufficient for conducting vaccination for the next three days only," Pinarayi Vijayan wrote.
He requested Vardhan to allot an additional 50 lakh doses of vaccine in the next couple of days, so that the vaccination programme of Kerala proceeds uninterrupted. "We are yet to get any additional supply of COVID-19 vaccine," Vijayan said. In his letter, the Chief Minister said the state has strengthened the surveillance and prevention systems to ensure that COVID-19 protocol is being adhered to.
He also pointed out that Kerala has been administering two lakh doses per day and planned to increase it to 2.5 lakh to three lakh doses per day. The state Health Department had earlier in the day said there are 1,826 vaccination centres across Kerala, including 1,402 in government hospitals and 424 in private hospitals. On Monday, the state reported 5,692 COVID-19 cases and 11 related deaths.
Two days back, the Telangana government had also written to the Union government to urgently provide at least 30 lakh doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for the next fifteen days. The state had been administering 1.15 lakh doses of vaccine per day and was planning to increase it to over 2 lakh vaccines per day.
Meanwhile, the Kerala government has made the COVID-19 regulations more stringent with the spike in active cases and test positivity rate being 10%. As per the new restrictions, shops will be shut by 9 pm and hotels are asked to function with only 50% capacity.
(With PTI inputs)
Read more about the COVID-19 restrictions here.