Telangana government stakes claim for more vaccines
Telangana Health Minister Eatala Rajender
With Hyd emerging as vaccine hub in country, Telangana deserves more allocations
Hyderabad: Health Minister Eatala Rajender on Thursday urged the Government of the Union to allocate additional supplies of Covid vaccine doses to Telangana.
In a video conference with Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health, on the preparations for another dry run of Covid vaccine in the State on Friday, the Health Minister said that since the vaccines are being manufactured in Hyderabad, more allocation is deserved by the State.
"We have successfully implemented all the vaccine roll-out guidelines recommended by the regulatory authorities. The State deserves to receive additional doses of Covid vaccine because they are produced in Hyderabad, so that more beneficiaries can be inoculated rapidly," Rajender told Dr. Harsh Vardhan at the video conference. He highlighted bugs in the Co-Win software, which is an integral part of the Covid vaccine roll-out project, faced by local health officials during the interaction.
It is difficult for us to record the names of beneficiaries from 14 districts with the Co-WIN app. Our vaccine administration teams face various software problems," he said.
Dr Harsh Vardhan immediately reacted to the issue of software glitches and vowed to fix them in the evening. "In a few more hours, we will be able to provide a solution to the software glitches," he said.
Rajender pointed out that the immunisation teams would be able to cover more high-risk groups if Telangana receives more doses of the Covid vaccine. "We are only providing the vaccine to healthcare staff at present. There are, however, other groups of frontline workers which fall under the non-clinical category in hospitals, including grade four staff and sanitation staff.
Then police officers are there who need to be vaccinated at the earliest. Even those over 60 years of age must be administered at the earliest. Given these challenges, I urge the Union government to allocate additional doses of the Covid vaccines," he said.
The State health authorities assured during the interaction that all arrangements for the smooth conduct of the dry run of Covid vaccination in Telangana were in place.
