Guwahati: Assam health department urgently requested 1.6 lakh doses of COVID-19 from the centre. The health department started looking for dosages after districts started asking more immunisations.
According to reports, the state only has 2.58 lakh Covaxin medications, including booster doses on hand at this time.
“If the vaccination centres see a heavy rush, which seems imminent if Covid cases start spiralling in the country and state, the state health department will be in a fix. Almost after a gap of two months, today we have placed a request before the Union health ministry seeking more stocks of Covid vaccines,” the source told while quoted by TOI, adding that a demand for one lakh Covishield and 60,000 Corbevax doses has been raised.
During a video conference that Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya presided over with the state health ministers, Keshab Mahanta, the health minister for Assam demanded first and foremost that an adequate quantity of Covid-19 vaccines be supplied so that the precaution dose could be administered as soon as possible.
But Assam is awake and prepared to confront any situation, Mahanta reassured the delegation. Assam has all the necessary consumables, beds, oxygen status, ICU, and other equipment to handle any emergency crisis, he proclaimed.
Mandaviya requested that all the states increase testing, educate the public, give out additional preventive doses, and always act in accordance with Covid standards.
Mahanta and senior health officials had evaluated the Covid-19 preparedness the day before. Apart from the decision to follow the Centre’s instructions and submit positive case samples for genome sequencing in order to discover the Covid variants through INSACOG labs, health officials claimed that no other definite choices had been made.
“We will now carefully adhere to the Centre’s recommendations. I hope it will be sufficient to stave off the virus “Anup Kumar Barman, director of medical education in Assam, said. As of Thursday, there were no current Covid cases in Assam.