Covid vaccine Second dose first

Hyderabad: People waiting to take the first dose of Covid vaccine have to wait for another month as the Health department wants to give priority to those waiting for the second dose during July.

Over 37 lakh people in Telangana State are said to be waiting for the second dose and most of them have crossed the time gap between the first and second dose as prescribed by the Health department.

A total of 48,80,869 people aged above 45 years were administered the first dose and only 11,33,913 got the second dose while 37,46,956 are waiting. According to Health officials, Telangana is getting 20 lakh doses per month on an average in three or four phases and the Health department is unable to administer both doses at a time. This is not the first time the department had decided to hold back administering the first dose. Earlier in May this year, the first dose was stopped so that those due for the second dose could be vaccinated.

Speaking about vaccine supply, Director of Public Health Telangana, Dr G Srinivasa Rao said, "we had requested the Union Government to increase the vaccine supply for July.

Telangana is getting the same number of doses from the Central Government even after the free vaccine programme was announced by the Centre." As there are only two manufacturers producing the Covid vaccine it is becoming difficult for the Centre to supply more quantity of vaccines to meet the requirements of the States, he said. Under the new rules framed by the Centre, while 75% of vaccine is supplied to the Centre which distributes to States based on certain criteria, 25 per cent of vaccine is earmarked for private hospitals which can directly purchase from the manufacturing companies.