E-Paper
K’taka to buy 10mn vaccines at ₹400 crore for younger age groups
Bengaluru Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa on Thursday said that the state government would procure around 10 million doses of Covishield vaccine for the inoculation of younger age groups that begins on May 1, becoming one of the first in the country to do so
Bengaluru Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa on Thursday said that the state government would procure around 10 million doses of Covishield vaccine for the inoculation of younger age groups that begins on May 1, becoming one of the first in the country to do so.
“Chief minister has approved (the) purchase of 1 crore doses of Covid vaccine at a cost of ₹400 crore, in (the) first phase. This will be used for vaccination of persons between 18 to 44 years,” the chief ministers office (CMO) said in a statement on Thursday.
The orders for the vaccine comes a day ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is expected to take stock of the deteriorating Covid-19 situation across different states.
The decision comes days after the Serum Institute of India announced the price at which it would sell the vaccine in the open market. The announcement comes as a result of the PMs decision to open up the vaccination drive for younger age groups in the country.
Karnataka has so far vaccinated 76,41,817 persons in the state and the government is trying to scale up numbers to contain the raging pandemic.
Bengaluru reported its highest ever single-day spike as 15,244 new infections in the last 24 hours on Wednesday that takes its active case count to 1,37,813.
Bengaluru accounted for 68 out of the 123 fatalities recorded in the state. The total number of active cases in Karnataka inched towards the 2 lakh mark and currently stands at 1,96,236 as it also registered its highest ever single-day spike with 25,795 cases in the 24 hours on Wednesday. The situation in other parts of the state continues to deteriorate with almost all 30 districts reporting over 100 cases per day and Tumakuru, about 70 km from Bengaluru, reporting 1,231 infections.
