Ensure enough stock of booster shots for Telangana: Harish Rao to MOHFW

State government urged the MOHFW to ensure enough stock of Covid vaccine booster shots were made available to Telangana

Hyderabad: The State government on Friday urged the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) to ensure enough stock of Covid vaccine booster shots were made available to Telangana.

At present, there are 8 lakh booster doses of Covishield, 80,000 doses of Covaxin and no stock of Corbevax booster shots. The MOHFW has to make sure that adequate stocks of booster shots were available so that they could be administered quickly, State Health Minister, T Harish Rao during a video conference with union Health Minister, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday, said.

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In terms of administering booster shots, Telangana has fared better by vaccinating 48 per cent of eligible beneficiaries while at the national level, only 23 per cent have received the booster shots, he said.

Rao urged the union Health Minister to release guidelines and treatment modalities to handle Covid infections caused by BF 7 variant of the Omicron. “It will help us to act proactively and prepare for eventualities if the guidelines and treatment protocols are released at the earliest,” he said.

Highlighting the need to stock up medical oxygen, Harish Rao urged MOHFW to establish MoUs between major oxygen plants in the country and nearest healthcare facilities, which would ensure there was no short supply of oxygen when needed.

Due to lack of annual maintenance contracts, government hospitals in Hyderabad were struggling to take up maintenance of ventilators and Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) oxygen generation plants provided by the Centre during past Covid waves.

“For better preparedness and improve early prevention, detection and management of Covid infections, there is a need for the Centre to come out with emergency Covid response package,” Harish Rao in the video conference, which was also attended by senior health officials from Telangana, said.