Covid-19 in Odisha: Health Minister Naba Das seeks vaccines for precaution dose to left out citizens

Bhubaneswar: Taking a serious note of the outbreak of new variant BF.7 of COVID-19 in some countries like China, Japan, USA, Brazil, Republic of Korea, Odisha urged the Centre to provide an additional quantity of Covid 19 vaccine to be used as precaution dose to the beneficiaries who were left out in the State.

Odisha Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Das today wrote a letter to the Union Health Minister in this regard and requested to issue required guidelines for the vaccinations to the left out citizens.

The precautionary dose will be administered to the left out citizens at Government Covid 19 vaccination centres (CVCs), he stated.

“As of now, 8,14 crore doses have been given as first dose and 3.30 crore doses as second dose to the people aged 12 years & above and 1.31 crore doses to the citizens aged 18 years and above as precaution dose in the State. Hence, the precaution dose has covered only 41% of the population,” Das mentioned in the letter.

“Odisha has stock of vaccines presently. There is further requirement of precaution dose to cater to left out 1.93 crore against total of 3.25 crore citizens,” he added.