Telangana has received as many as 4.60 lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses, days after the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led government sought disbursement of the vaccines from the Union government, to ramp up the vaccination drive in the state. According to officials at the Department of Public Health and Family Welfare, the state received 2 lakh doses of Covaxin and 2.60 lakh doses of Covishield on Monday night.
Earlier this week, the Telangana government wrote to the Union government seeking at least 30 lakh doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for the ongoing vaccination drive. At the time, the state government claimed that it was administering 1.15 lakh doses of vaccine per day and wanted more doses as it planned to increase the number to over 2 lakh vaccines per day.
In a letter dated April 10 (Saturday) addressed to Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar wrote, "As you are aware, Telangana state is left with only 5.66 lakh doses of vaccine, which would last for 3 days at maximum. Therefore, I would like to request you to urgently provide at least 30 lakh doses of vaccine to Telangana for the next 15 days.”
The Telangana government is conducting vaccination at government and private centres across the state including on Sundays and public holidays. As per the latest data, as many as 23.15 lakh doses were administered in 1,196 vaccination centres, of which 20.04 lakh were first doses and 3.11 lakh were second doses. The state government pegged the vaccine wastage at 2.55%.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Andhra Pradesh also received 6.40 lakh doses of vaccine doses in two batches. On Monday, the state received 4.40 lakh vaccine doses and on Tuesday, it received another 2 lakh doses of vaccines.
Due to the shortage of doses in the state, a special vaccination drive as part of the ‘Tika Utsav’ call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had not taken place on Monday in Andhra Pradesh.