Maharashtra needs at least 40 lakh vaccines per week: Rajesh Tope

Amid a tussle between the Centre and the Maharashtra government over the shortfall of Covid-19 vaccines, the Public Health and Family Welfare Minister Rajesh Tope said the pandemic-affected state needs at least 40 lakh vaccines per week.

“We will maintain the level of six lakh per week. We will not go beyond it at this stage, but at least give us 40 lakh vaccines per week,” Tope told reporters.

He said that Maharashtra, which has a population of 12 crore, has received 1.4 crore doses so far, whereas neighbouring Gujarat – which has a population of 6 crore – has got 1 crore doses. “Maharashtra has the maximum number of active patients – around 4.5 lakh as on date, on the other hand, we have crossed the progressive total of 30 lakh,” he said.

Also read — Gujarat half the size of Maharashtra but gets same number of Covid-19 vaccine doses: Tope

“We hardly have 9 lakh doses left, which would last for one or one-and-a-half days,” he said.

He also said that the state was following the ICMR guidelines of a 70:30 ratio of RT-PCRs and RATs. “We are strictly following what the ICMR suggested,” he said, however, pointed out that in Uttar Pradesh it is the other way round – 90 per cent RATs and 10 per cent RT-PCR.

Tope’s statement comes hours after Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the "lackadaisical attitude" of the Maharashtra government had singularly bogged down the entire country's efforts to fight the virus.

Also read — Utterly baseless: Harsh Vardhan on Maharashtra's Covid-19 vaccine shortage allegation

Tope said, “Maharashtra is a big state, geographically and in terms of population. If we look at per million cases then we have around 24,000 lesser cases than several other states.”