PUNE Maharashtra is expected to receive 17 million Covid vaccine doses in September from the Central government, Rajesh Tope, state health minister, said on Monday.
This is substantially higher than July and August, when Maharashtra received close to 11.5 million doses in each of the months.
According to the state health department, Maharashtra administered close to 11.9 million doses in August (till the 30th), while this number was 11.9 million in July as well.
Tope said while supply from Centre to the state will increase in September the state will have a robust system in place to vaccinate even more beneficiaries.
“The centre has promised to supply 17 million doses in September. Whatever centre gives, we distribute. We have proved we can vaccinate over 1 million in a day and can stretch beyond 1.5 million in a day,” Tope said in Jalna.
In August, state administered 1.1 million doses on August 21, the highest so far.
In Pune, a total of 7,454,366 doses have been administered as of August 29, with first doses being administered to 5,436,620 beneficiaries and second doses to 2,017,746 beneficiaries.
The health minister also advised caution in the light of various festivals coming up in the state. Reacting to the Centre’s advisory on imposing a night curfew in Kerala and Maharashtra, Tope said, “This is in view of the rising cases in Kerala after the Onam festival - about 31,000 new Covid-19 cases a day. Maharashtra also needs to be cautious. We also have many festivals coming up one after the other, in two days we have Pola, then in the coming weeks, Ganpati, Dussehra and Diwali. In view of this I think that we need to take care. The central government has given us some guidelines including night curfew and because of this we at the state government are also considering the same.”
{{/usCountry}}The health minister also advised caution in the light of various festivals coming up in the state. Reacting to the Centre’s advisory on imposing a night curfew in Kerala and Maharashtra, Tope said, “This is in view of the rising cases in Kerala after the Onam festival - about 31,000 new Covid-19 cases a day. Maharashtra also needs to be cautious. We also have many festivals coming up one after the other, in two days we have Pola, then in the coming weeks, Ganpati, Dussehra and Diwali. In view of this I think that we need to take care. The central government has given us some guidelines including night curfew and because of this we at the state government are also considering the same.”
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