Mumbai: The Maharashtra Government, in a bid to give further push to the Covid-19 vaccination and cover more citizens, has urged the Centre to supply additional 1.50 crore vaccine doses for the month of July. In a letter to the union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, the state public health department additional chief secretary Dr Pradeep Vyas said the Centre has allocated 1,15,25,180 vaccine doses for July but has sought additional 1.50 crore doses. Dr Vyas has assured that these doses would be administered in the shortest possible time within minimum/NIL wastage and would be optimally utilized.
Dr Vyas argued that the additional doses are needed as Maharashtra has the highest number of reported cases of Delta Plus variant of SARS-COV-19 in the country. ‘’Maharashtra is also reporting approximately 10,000 new cases daily for the last three weeks in spite of trying to follow the instructions of containment, isolation, testing and tracking. As a result, as of today Maharashtra has the highest number of Covid-19 active cases in the country, though the positivity rate in almost all districts has come down to below 5%,’’ he said.
Dr Vyas said the state on June 26 has administered 7,38,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in a single day and is confident that it can administer 10 to 12 lakh doses per day on a sustained basis. ‘’Earlier in one of the meetings, Maharashtra was asked to present the plan for administering up to 9 lakh Covid-19 doses in a day. In this background, I would request you to kindly make available additional allocation of at least 1.5 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses for July over and above what has already been allocated,’’ he added.
Dr Vyas’ letter came days after Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said the state can administer 15 lakh doses daily. Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Friday said the Centre should not pass the buck on to the state and keep on blaming them for the pace of vaccination. Instead, he demanded that the Centre needs to further streamline the supply of doses.
Earlier, union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan had said it would be the state government’s fault if there is a vaccine supply issue now. He further noted that states were informed in advance about the Covid-19 vaccine supply in July.
Maha sets new jab record
Maharashtra on Saturday surpassed its previous best performance in Covid-19 vaccination till 7 pm on Saturday, it has administered 7,85,311 doses which is the highest ever figure for the state. Public Health Department additional chief secretary Dr Pradeep Vyas said the state will cross 8 lakh figure by today. ‘’Previous best was 7,38,704 doses on June 26. With this total cumulative vaccination till 6 pm as per dashboard is 3,38,372 maintaining top position in the country since last more than 3 months,’’ he added.
