Our Correspondents
Kohima, Jan. 13 (EMN): Days before India starts rolling out Covid-19 vaccination drive on January 16, Union Health Ministry has clarified that there is "no question" of discrimination against any states and union territories in allocation of coronavirus vaccine doses.
The Health Ministry in a social media update stated that the full initial procurement amount of 1.65 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccine (Covishield and Covaxin) have been allocated to all states and union territories in proportion of healthcare workers' database.
"Therefore, there is no question of discrimination against any state in allocation of vaccine doses," it said, adding that this is the 'initial lot of supply of vaccine doses' and would be continuously replenished in the weeks to come.
"Therefore, any apprehension being expressed on account of deficient supply is totally baseless and unfounded", the Ministry said.
It advised the states to organise vaccination sessions ‘taking into account 10% reserve/wastage doses and average of 100 vaccinations/session/day’, and to avoid undue haste on the parts of states to organise unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day.
Further, it asked the states and UTs to increase the number of vaccination session sites that would be operational every day in a progressive manner as the vaccination process stabilises and moves forward.