Telangana officials fear for reduced medical, drug supplies despite request to Centre

HYDERABAD:  The Central government has failed to meet the requirements of Telangana in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. The State government, which requested the Centre to increase the supplies of medical oxygen, Remdesivir injections and vaccine doses, is in fact expecting a decrease in supplies in the days to come. 

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase the supply of medical oxygen from the present 440 tonnes to 500 tonnes per day, Remdesivir injections from 4,900 to 25,000 per day and vaccine doses up to two or 2.5 lakh doses per day. The State has so far received 50 lakh vaccine doses.

The State government wrote a formal letter to the Central government on Friday, with a request to increase the supplies. However, the officials are anticipating that the supplies may decrease.

"We are spending sleepless nights. Till Friday night, the  Centre did not increase the supplies," an official told The New Indian Express. However, Union Minister DV Sadananda Gowda in a release said that Telangana would receive 1.43 lakh Remdesivir injections up to May 16. This includes allocations already made from April 21 to May 9.  

According to another statement issued by the Ministry of Health, Telangana so far received 54,21,700 doses of vaccine and the consumption was 50,37,363 doses.

However, the vaccine doses in the pipeline were zero, it said. With the insufficient allocations of vaccine doses by the Centre, the State put on hold the vaccination drive for people aged between 18 and 44.