Several districts in Maharashtra will run out of the Covid-19 vaccine stock in a day or two and the Centre has been informed about it, a senior state health official said on Wednesday. As on Wednesday morning, the state has around 14 lakh vaccine doses, principal secretary (health) Pradeep Vyas said.
“Many districts will run out of the stock today or tomorrow. The Centre is aware of the situation and (we) have also communicated in writing,” he said. Maharashtra can easily administer five lakh vaccine shots in a day if there is a clarity on schedule and availability, the official said.
For the last few days, the state has been vaccinating about four lakh people daily. Nearly 82 lakh people have been vaccinated so far in Maharashtra since the roll-out of the inoculation drive.
An official statement on Tuesday said Maharashtra had received 1.06 crore doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, out of which 88 lakh doses have been used while the wastage stood at three per cent. It said the state government will vigorously pursue its demand for more stock of vaccine doses, considering the rapid rise in the COVID-19 cases and expansion of the vaccination drive.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow people above 25 years to receive COVID-19 shots, which he said will protect the young people from the rapid spread of the viral infection at a time when they are stepping outside their homes to earn a livelihood. In a letter to the PM, Thackeray also demanded that Maharashtra be provided 1.5 crore additional doses of vaccines, which will enable the state government to complete within three weeks the vaccination of beneficiaries above 45 years of age in six districts, including Mumbai.
Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope too spoke about the need for more vaccines. “We do not have enough vaccine doses at various vaccination centres, and people have to be sent back due to a shortage of doses. We have demanded from the Centre that people of age group 20-40 years must be vaccinated on priority.”
He added, “We suspect that there is a new strain that is affecting people in a shorter duration of time. Samples have been sent to National Centre for Disease Control to ascertain this.”
Maharashtra on Tuesday reported 55,469 fresh coronavirus positive cases, the second highest spike in the last two days, taking the tally of infections to 31,13,354while 297 deaths pushed the toll to 56,330, the state health department said. Maharashtra is now left with 4,72,283 active cases.
Mumbai recorded 10,040 new cases and 32 deaths. At the same time, 34,256 people were discharged on Tuesday, taking the count of the recoveries in the state to 25,83,331, the department said in a release.
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