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Karnataka crosses 10mn vaccinations: Govt
Bengaluru Karnataka on Wednesday crossed the 10 million mark in inoculation of COVID-19 vaccines, making it one of the first states to do so in the country
Bengaluru Karnataka on Wednesday crossed the 10 million mark in inoculation of COVID-19 vaccines, making it one of the first states to do so in the country.
Karnataka is heavily relying on increasing its vaccination drive to contain the surge of cases in the state, which on Wednesday reported its highest ever single-day spike with 50,112 new infections.
“Karnataka crossed 10 million inoculations of Covid-19 vaccine today. K’taka has received 1,05,49,970 doses from Centre & state govt has procured 300 thousand doses. Vaccine is our biggest weapon to defeat the pandemic & govt is leaving no stone unturned to vaccinate everyone at the earliest,” K Sudhakar, Karnataka’s minister for health, family welfare and medical education said on Twitter.
However, the bulk of vaccinations taken place so far are the first dose, according to data.
Out of the 1,00,72, 795 vaccinations done so far, 83,28,235 are those who received the first dose. Only 17,44,560 persons have received both doses, according to government data.
Though Karnataka has given a symbolic beginning of vaccinations for persons between 18-44 age group, only 5,136 persons have been inoculated so far due to shortage of vaccines.
Karnataka has ordered for 10 million doses of Covishield vaccines from Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) at the cost of ₹400 crore. However, the state government has said that the vaccination for the 18-44 age group will be delayed since SII has not given any clarity on delivery of vaccines.
The state government, which is being accused of not preparing for the imminent second wave despite warnings in November by the technical advisory committee (TAC) in November, has now tried to get its act together by naming senior ministers to overlook requirements of critical supplies like hospital beds, medicines, oxygen and others.
CN Ashwath Narayan, the deputy chief minister, incharge of testing, medicines and other requirements on Wednesday said that the government would ensure that Covid-19 test results would be provided within seven hours as against 72 hours taken currently.
He also added that the four companies that supply Remdesivir will double their distribution to Karnataka from 10,000 vials currently to 20,000.
“I have spoken to company heads of these four firms and put together, they have agreed to increase the supply to 20,000 vials. Till now these companies were supplying 10,000 vials in total per day. He also informed that the companies have agreed to further increase the supply after May 9.
Narayan had a telephonic conversation with Nikhil Baswan, Global Head of Cipla, Rakesh Bamzai of Mylan, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Syngene and Umangur of Jubilant, according to a statement by his office.
