The Telangana government on Tuesday, August 9, urged Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya to supply at least 50 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine urgently to enable the state to ramp up the pace of precautionary doses. In a letter to Mandaviya, state Health Minister T Harish Rao said the Telangana government has decided to take up a massive drive for administration of precautionary doses to the eligible population.

At present, the state is administering about 1.5 lakh doses per day. However, based on the demand, there is potential to administer over three lakh precautionary doses per day which the state is not able to meet as "there is shortage of vaccine supplies, particularly for Covishield", Harish Rao said.

The Telangana government has urged the Union government, from time to time, to increase the supply of vaccines. The state is, however, receiving vaccines only in small quantities making it difficult to ramp up vaccination from present levels, he said. As of now, the state has only 2.7 lakh doses of Covishield which is not sufficient even for two days, he added. "I, therefore, request the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare to kindly arrange to supply at least 50 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine to Telangana urgently to enable the state to ramp up the pace of precautionary doses," Harish Rao said.

Telangana has achieved 106% coverage of the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination and 104% for the second dose for the 18 years-plus population, which is one of the highest in the country, he said.

On Monday, July 8, Telangana recorded 896 new COVID-19 cases. With this, the total number of cases in the state rose to 8,26,284. The highest number of cases on Monday was seen in Hyderabad, which recorded 196 cases. There were no fatalities reported on the day.