Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, undergoing treatment for Covid-19 in hospital, has written to the Centre requesting urgent supply of 50 lakh doses of vaccine ‘in the next couple of days’ to help the state replenish its fast-draining supplies and to help carry on an intensive vaccination drive uninterrupted.
In a communication addressed to Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, the Chief Minister said that the state has ‘made a 45-action plan and are currently administering around two lakh doses per day, which will be further scaled up to 2.5-three lakh doses’ to curb the viral spread.
Yet to get additional supplies
The state has so far received 56,84,360 doses of the vaccine including 54,40,740 of Covishield and 2,43,620 of Covaxin. It has so far administered 48,24,505 doses till April 11 (Sunday). The stock left with the state is sufficient for vaccination for next three days only, the Chief Minister said.
The shortage of vaccine had been brought to the notice of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare by the Chief Secretary as well as the Principal Secretary, Health. But the state is yet to get any additional supply of the vaccine, with available stocks running dry in almost all districts.
Vaccine stock depleting
Meanwhile, Health Minister KK Shailaja said that the state had administered more than 2.38 lakh doses on Monday alone. This had dwarfed the previous day’s figure of 67,000 persons by a huge margin. It was creditable that the state could cover so many persons in a short time as part of the intensive drive.
Vaccination took place at 1,826 sites, including 1,402 government hospitals and 424 private hospitals. But the minister said she is worried about the depleting stock of vaccines, now down to just six lakh doses. More people would be vaccinated as and when the State received more doses.
The Covid-19 transmission gathered even more pace in the state on Monday with the test positivity rate galloping to 12.53 per cent (10.75 per cent on the previous day). Latest available statistics reveal that new cases and hospital admissions are rising with the disease transmission being the highest in northern districts.
Active case pool on the rise
The state added 5,692 new cases to its tally on Monday when 47,596 samples, much fewer than the previous day’s numbers, were tested. The cumulative case burden now stands at 11,72,882 cases.
The active case pool has almost doubled since March 22 when it had reported around 24,000 cases.
Addition of 11 deaths to the official list took the cumulative Covid-19 toll in the state to 4,794.
As for recoveries, a comparably fewer 2,474 were reported with cumulative recoveries logging in at 11,20,174. New hospital admissions rose to 1,270 with 14,493 persons being put on home or institutional quarantine on the day. A total of 1,68,827 people are currently in home or institutional quarantine in the state.