Eatala Rajender urges the Centre to allocate additional supplies of Covid vaccine doses

Health Minister, Eatala Rajender on Thursday urged the Union government to allocate additional supplies of Covid vaccine doses to Telangana.

In a video conference with Union Minister for Health, Dr. Harsh Vardhan on preparedness for carrying out another Covid vaccine dry run in the State on Friday, Rajender said that since the vaccines are being manufactured in Hyderabad, the State deserves to get more allocation.

“We have successfully implemented all the guidelines prescribed by the regulatory authorities to roll-out the vaccine. Since they are being manufactured in Hyderabad, the State deserves to get additional doses of Covid vaccine, so that more number of beneficiaries can be inoculated quickly,” Rajender in the video conference told Dr. Harsh Vardhan.

During the interaction, he highlighted glitches that the local health officials were facing in the Co-Win software, which is an integral part of the Covid vaccine roll-out initiative. “We are facing difficulties in enrolling the names of beneficiaries from 14 districts, in the Co-WIN software. Our vaccine administration teams are facing numerous problems with the



software,” he said.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan responded immediately on the issue of software glitches and promised to have them addressed by evening. “We will able to provide a solution to the software glitches in another few hours,” he said.

Rajender pointed out that if Telangana receives more doses of the Covid vaccine, the immunisation teams will be able to cover more high-risk groups.

“At present, we are only offering the vaccine to healthcare workers. However, there are other groups of frontline workers including grade four employees and sanitation staff, who fall under non-clinical category in hospitals. Then there are police personnel who need to be vaccinated at the earliest. 

Even people who are above 60 years must be administered at the earliest. Given these challenges, I urge the Union government to allocate additional doses of the Covid vaccines,” he said.

During the interaction, the State health authorities assured that all arrangements were in place for the smooth conduct of Covid vaccination dry run in Telangana.