Odisha halts Covid-19 inoculation in 11 districts due to shortage of vaccines

The inoculation drive against Covid-19 was on Tuesday halted in 11 of Odisha's 30 districts due to shortage of vaccines, a senior health department official said.

Director of Family Welfare, Dr Bijay Panigrahi, who is also the officer in charge of immunisation, said: "The inoculation drive has been halted in 11 districts due to shortage of vaccines."

The districts where vaccinations have been halted were: Sambalpur, Puri, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Nayagarh, Boudh, Gajapati, Dhenkanal, Koraput, Jharsuguda and Sonepur, Panigrahi told reporters.

An official source said that the inoculation drive was conducted in 495 session sites out of above 1,400 sites across the state.

"A total of 66,787 beneficiaries were vaccinated at 495 centres on Tuesday ...," he said.

Read | All you need to know about India's Covid-19 vaccines

However, he said the vaccination drive was underway in the remaining 19 districts of the state.

Panigrahi said the state has received 2.71 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine doses on Monday and another 2 lakh doses of Covaxin on Tuesday.

Odisha Health Minister NK Das had on Monday written a letter to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan urging to supply at least 10 days stock of Covishield (25 lakh doses).

He said now the Covisheild vaccines will be dispatched to different districts while Covaxin doses are only given to the beneficiaries in Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation jurisdiction. "We hope some more vaccine centres will be re- activated on Wednesday after receiving new stock," he said.

The Tika Ustav, which is going on for four days from April 11 to April 14, will end on Wednesday, he said, adding that the state has so far vaccinated 45,85,049 persons.

On April 3, Odisha held 1476 vaccination sessions and vaccinated the highest ever 2,71,480 beneficiaries in a single day. However, since then due to short and uncertain supply of vaccines from MoHFW, the state has been forced to close vaccination centres, the minister said.

Meanwhile, keeping in view the spike of cases, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, Cuttack Municipal Corporation and some other district authorities have imposed restriction on observation of "Maha Bishuva Sankranti" and other festivals in order to avoid large gatherings.

An official of Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) Tuesday said that at least 23 people associated with the Puri temple activities are identified as Covid-19 positive.

Odisha's Covid-19 tally surged to 3,53,086 on Tuesday as 1,784 more people tested positive for the infection, while two fresh fatalities pushed the state's coronavirus death toll to 1,930, a health official said.

The state on Tuesday registered recovery of 523 patients taking the total number of cured persons to 3,41,123 which is 96.61 per cent of the caseload.

Odisha's case fatality ratio(CFR) stands at 0.54 per cent while active cases percentage is 2.82 per cent, an official data said.