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Orders placed for Covid-19 vaccines, expect to deliver at least one dose to all by December: Karnataka deputy CM
Deputy chief minister of Karnataka CN Ashwathnarayan and state health minister K Sudhakar have said that the government aims to inoculate beneficiaries in the state with at least one dose by end of 2021.
The Karnataka state government aims to inoculate the entire population of the state with at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of December 2021, deputy chief minister CN Ashwathnarayan said on Wednesday. The deputy CM also said that the state has already placed orders for the vaccines with the manufacturers and has also requested them to increase the supply.
“We have placed orders for 2 crore vaccine doses with SII [Serum Institute of India] and 1 crore with Bharat Biotech. They have started supplying, around 10 lakh vaccines have been supplied by the SII, around 1.5 lakh doses supplied by Bharat Biotech. We are requesting them to scale up the supply,” news agency ANI quoted Ashwathnarayan as saying.
“It's a matter of time. By August, we will have huge vaccine availability. Probability by end of December, we can expect the entire population to have at least a single dose,” the deputy CM further added.
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Earlier in the day, state health minister K Sudhakar also made similar comments when he said that the state government intends to vaccinate all beneficiaries in the state by the end of the year. “Our major objective is to vaccinate all by October end or November end. All our efforts are in the direction of vaccinating every citizen by the end of the year,” news agency PTI quoted Sudhakar as saying.
The health minister also confirmed that the state has received over a million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from the two manufacturers in India -- Covishield doses from the Serum Institute of India in Pune and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech’ Covaxin.
“The state has so far received 10,94,000 doses;- 9,50,000 Covishield and 1,44,000 Covaxin, as part of direct procurement from manufacturers. It has also received an additional 1,11,24,470 doses from the Government of India,” ANI quoted the health minister as saying on Wednesday.
Karnataka has emerged as the country’s new Covid-19 hotspot in the second wave of the pandemic. With 575,049 active cases as of the day, it accounts for 25 per cent of India’s active caseload, data from the Union health ministry showed. Also, as of 7am on the day, the state has administered 11,361,234 doses of the vaccine, according to the central ministry’s dashboard.
