Only Six States Including Odisha Start Vaccination For 18+ From Today

Bhubaneswar: With the third phase of vaccination drive in the country starting from today, only six states have made arrangements for inoculating the eighteen to forty four year population. As many of the states are yet to receive the required vaccines, the drive seems to have faced bottlenecks. The six stated that have been able to procure vaccines for the third phase include Odisha, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Gujarat. Most of the other states have differed their dates due to uncertainty in arrival of the vaccines.

The six states that are going to start the vaccination today are also doing so as a token exercise in which a limited number of people between the ages 18 and 44 will be given the vaccines. Odisha had yesterday night received 1.5 lakh Covaxin vaccine doses as part of its own efforts to procure more than 10 lakh doses.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had announced that all the people between the ages of 18 and 44 will be provided free vaccines by the government. For this the government has earmarked an amount of Rs 2000 Crore. The government had also placed orders with the vaccine manufacturers to procure 10.34 lakh doses of Coxaxin and 377 lakh Covishield vaccines.