Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday sought from the Centre more doses of COVID-19 vaccines, saying the state had run out of Covishield stock and had limited doses of Covaxin.
He said the state had repeatedly raised the issue with the Centre and he would again take it up with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.
Taking stock of the vaccination drive in Punjab at a virtual Covid review meeting, Mr Singh said more than 62 lakh people had been inoculated in the state.
However, he said, there was a gross shortage of vaccines in Punjab. The state ran out of Covishield vaccines on Tuesday and only 1,12,821 doses of Covaxin were left.
He also urged the Centre to supply more doses of vaccines to the state.
Mr Singh said the state had repeatedly raised the issue of inadequate supply of vaccine doses with the Centre. He said he would again take up the matter with Mr Vardhan and escalate it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi if needed.
This is of critical importance as Punjab has slowly been opening up sectors if stakeholders have taken at least one dose of the vaccine, he added.
Mr Singh said his government had set a target to immunise all eligible people in two months, followed by the second dose.
Currently, 4.8 per cent of Punjab's eligible population is fully vaccinated, with Mohali leading in both first and second doses.
Citing a Punjab Police study showing 98 per cent protection against COVID-19 among police personnel after two doses of vaccine, Singh asked the health and medical education departments to continue monitoring vaccine efficacy in the light of the new variants of concern.
So far, around 79,000 Punjab Police personnel have been vaccinated, of which 57 per cent have received both doses, according to an official statement.
The study conducted between February 3 and June 28 showed that of the total deaths during this period, 15 were of those who had not been vaccinated at all, nine were of those who had received one dose, and only two were of those who had been fully vaccinated, Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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