E-Paper
Centre buying vaccines will be cheaper, faster, says Naveen Patnaik govt
The Odisha government’s letter pitching for central procurement of vaccines comes a day after Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan asked chief ministers of 11 non-NDA states to nudge the Centre to buy vaccines, saying it was trying to absolve itself of its duty.
Bhubaneswar: The Naveen Patnaik government on Tuesday told Centre that it would be faster and economical if procurement of global vaccines is made at the country-level rather than by individual states. In a letter to Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Odisha health minister Naba Das said as the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech did participate in the pre-bid meeting, it is understood that at their present capacity they won’t be able to provide the required vaccines to the states.
“There have been media reports that other states which have floated tenders are also facing non-response from vaccine manufacturers. It seems that the global vaccine manufacturers, like Pfizer and Moderna are concerned about indemnity related issues among others. Secondly, they are willing to deal with federal-level central procurement only. At this stage, global vaccine manufacturers will require the central government;s statutory clearances for supplying to the states,” said Das, stressing that it might be faster and economical if the procurement of global vaccines are made at the country-level rather than by individual states.
Odisha last week extended the deadline for the global tender floated for procurement of Covid-19 vaccines till June 4 in view of cyclone Yaas. The tender was issued on May 14 for procurement of 3.8 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses to inoculate its 18-44 population. The global tender had liberal conditions with respect to performance security, penalties and advance payments.
“Vaccination has been a game changer in most countries in saving both lives and the economy. It is important that we complete vaccination on a war footing before the onset of a possible third wave. In view of the urgency of the issue we look forward to early action in this regard and assure our continued cooperation to defeat Covid-19,” said Das, emphasising that states may be given the given flexibility to design and decide on the distribution of vaccines taking local factors into consideration.
The Odisha health minister said the vaccine supply constraint has forced the state to vaccinate only 60,000 -70,000 people per day even though it has the capacity to vaccinate at 3 lakh people per day. So far, Odisha has vaccinated 77 lakh people with at least one dose.
The health minister in his letter said Odisha would like to do priority vaccination for senior school students and their families.
“States may be given the flexibility to design and decide on distribution of vaccines taking local factors into consideration (for eg. in many hilly terrains, internet connectivity is poor and we can’t make online registration mandatory in those districts,” Das said.
