Amaravati: While India is gearing up for the COVID-19 vaccination drive for those aged above 18 years old from May 1, Andhra Pradesh expressed its inability to implement the third phase of inoculation due to a shortage of vaccine doses.
During a presser here, state principal secretary (medical and health) Anil Kumar Singhal said, "The mass vaccination program for people aged between 18 and 44 will not begin in Andhra Pradesh from May 1 due to shortage of vaccine."
"The state needs four crore vaccines to inoculate two crore people (two doses) in that age group. So the Chief Minister Y.S.Jagan Mohan Reddy will write a letter to Prime Minister Modi in this regard. The state is going to procure 9,90,700 Covishield and 3,43,930 of Covaxin doses in the month of May," he said.
"As of now, there are 30, 559 Remedisiver injections are available with the government. The state supplied 17,241 Remedisiver injection doses to the private hospitals across the state after verification," said Singhal.
Regarding the supply of oxygen from the union government, Singhal said that the state government requested to increase the supply from 470 tonnes to 550 tonnes to meet the rising demand.
The state has 1,22,980 active cases and over 86 thousand samples were tested during the last 24 hrs ending 9 am on Friday, an official bulletin said.
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