Key Points:
- Maharashtra is the FIRST STATE in the country to administer more than 10 MILLION (1 Crore) vaccine doses against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the state health department announced on Sunday.
- The state is currently facing an acute shortage of the Vaccine Doses which has been overlooked and denied by the Union Health Ministry.
- According to Maharashtra’s health department, the state requires 16 million vaccine doses per month and 40 lakh every week to vaccinate residents.
The state of Maharashtra as well as its government is being mocked by every individual in the country for the ever increasing cases in the state and the mishandling by the government. But, amidst this, Maharashtra has proved itself to be coping quite well with the virus. Maharashtra is the FIRST STATE in the country to administer more than 10 MILLION (1 Crore) vaccine doses against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the state health department announced on Sunday.
Dr Pradeep Vyas, the principal secretary of Maharashtra’s health department said, “The state administered 10,038,421 doses, highest in the country so far,” as of April 11 morning.
The state is currently facing an acute shortage of the Vaccine Doses which has been overlooked and denied by the Union Health Ministry. In response to the state’s allegations over the Covid-19 vaccine shortage, Union minister Prakash Javadekar blamed the Maharashtra government for wasting more than 500,000 doses.
On Saturday, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that Maharashtra has received 1.10 crore vaccine doses so far and when the health ministry released the data on Sunday of crossed the 1 crore mark, the situation of the shortage seems quite clear.
Apart from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan are the two other states that have received more than one crore doses, Mr Javadekar had said.
According to Maharashtra’s health department, the state requires 16 million vaccine doses per month and 40 lakh every week to vaccinate residents. In last few days, the state had to close down some vaccination centres and had to turn people away due to inadequate vaccine supplies. Maharashtra is the worst affected state by the coronavirus pandemic with a caseload of 3,343,951.
The opposition has blamed the Centre for EXPORTING Vaccines instead of supplying it internally in the country. On Friday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked him to immediately stop the export of vaccines.
India being a major vaccine manufacturer a lot of countries have been vaccine-supported by the country and so far it has administered 64.5 million vaccine doses to other nations. The nationwide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16.