Kerala CM writes to Centre seeking 50 lakh of COVID-19 vaccine doses

Amid shortages of vaccines, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday requested the Union Health Ministry to provide 50 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the state in a couple of days.

In a letter to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Vijayan said, "So far the State has received 56,84,360 doses of COVID-19 vaccine including 54,40,740 of Covishield and 2,43,620 of Covaxin and we have administered 48,24,505 doses till April 11, 2021. The stock which is left with us is sufficient for conducting vaccination for the next three days only."

The Chief Minister said that no additional supply of COVID-19 vaccines has been made despite the shortage of vaccines brought to the notice of the Health Ministry.

"This shortage of vaccine has been brought to the notice of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare by the Chief Secretary as well as Principal Secretary, Health. We are yet to get any additional supply of COVID-19 vaccines," the letter said.

"In this regard, I request you to allot additional 50 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine to our state in the next couple of days, so that our vaccination programme proceeds uninterrupted for successfully controlling the pandemic," it said.

The Chief Minister said that as Kerala is witnessing a rise in the number of COVID cases, the government have made a 45 days action plan and have been successfully administering around two lakh doses per day, which will be further scaled to curb the rapid rise up to 2.5-3 lakh doses per day.

( With inputs from ANI )