PremiumAbout 22 lakh people in Odisha are waiting for the second shot of coronavirus vaccine, the state government told the Centre on Wednesday. Odisha requires 25 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccine to meet the demand, state's Health and Family Welfare Minister N K Das told Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in a virtual meeting today.
Das said that the state has been facing an acute shortage of vaccines and people are waiting to get their crucial second dose. He said the state immediately requires at least 25 lakh of Covishield vaccines to meet the requirement.
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Premium Premium The minister also requested the Centre to ensure the supply of oxygen cylinders.
"While daily consumption of liquid medical oxygen in Odisha is 52.9 metric tonne (MT), production capacity in the state is 155.51 MT (through cylinders). However, the surplus LMO cannot be utilised due to a shortage of cylinders. Hence the state urgently needs 15,000 B-type oxygen cylinders and 15,000 D-type oxygen cylinders", Das said.
Odisha's health minister also added that the state needs 500 ventilators as patients in the second wave require oxygen and intenstive care treatments. He added that the state also needs more antigen kits in order to ramp up Covid-19 tests for early detection of the virus.
"For the safety of health workers and doctors, the state needs 5 lakh PPE kits, 10 lakh gloves and 10 lakh N-95 masks," Das said demanding setting up a a 247 helpline in the national task force for availing timely assistance and information on medicines used for critical patients.
Das also further informed the union minister that Odisha has case fatality ratio (CFR) stands at 0.39 per cent due to effective Covid-19 management. The national CFR is 1.08%. Besides, the recovery rate in Odisha is more than 80% , he said.
Meanwhile, the Odisha government informed all the district authorities that the due date for second dose of Covishield vaccine has been revised to 42 days (six weeks) after the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Therefore, beneficiaries visiting vaccination centre for second dose of Covishield between four and six weeks cannot be vaccinated and the Co-WIN portal will not allow the same, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare (H &FW) P K Mohapatra said in a letter to district authorities.
"The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has made modification in Co-WIN portal for second dose of Covishield with effect from today. The due date for the second dose has been revised to 42 days (6 weeks) after first dose, which was 28 days (4 weeks) earlier. You are requested to share the same with all officials, supervisor, vaccinators and verifiers," Mohapatra said in the letter. However, there has been no such modification for Covaxin vaccines, sources said.
(With PTI inputs)
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