AMN / WEB DESK
Delhi Government has decided to provide free vaccines to every person aged above 18 years. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi today, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, Delhi government has given the approval for the purchase of one crore 34 lakh doses of vaccines. Terming the vaccine the only solution to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr. Kejriwal said, the government is preparing plans for administration of vaccine doses to the people.
Expressing concern over the different pricing of vaccines for the State governments, the Chief Minister urged the vaccine manufacturers to provide the vaccine at 150 rupees per dose. He said, one vaccine producer said that they will provide vaccines to the state government at 400 rupees per dose and the second producer said that they will provide at 600 rupees per dose. He said, these companies have promised to provide vaccines at 150 rupees per dose to the Central Government. He said, efforts should be made to bring the people below 18 years of age under vaccination coverage.
Amid the shortage of beds facilities in Delhi, Mr. Kejriwal said that efforts have been made to increase the number of oxygen beds in the city. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Health Minister Satyendra Jain visited the Radha Saomi facility this morning. Mr. Kejriwal said, the 200 ICU beds will be arranged in this facility for the treatment of Covid patients in a few days and the bed capacities would be increased to five thousand.
The Odisha government has announced free vaccination for people above 18 years of age. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said that the State Government will incur an expenditure of two thousand crore rupees to meet the goal.
Ahead of the phase three of the nationwide vaccination drive to be rolled out from the first of May, the state government has geared up to inoculate about 1.93 crore people in the age group of 18 to 44 years. Accordingly, it has placed orders before the Serum Institute of India for supply of 377 lakh doses of Covishield and Bharat Biotech for supply of a little more than 10 lakh doses of Covaxin, while designating Odisha State Medical Corporation Limited as the nodal agency for vaccine procurement.
Meanwhile, the state government has ensured dispatch of medical oxygen to 6 States to meet the shortfall there, while entrusting the task of timely refilling and dispatch of oxygen cylinders to the covid hospitals to the District Drugs Inspectors, back home.