Covid Cases in Karnataka: Coronavirus cases rise in Karnataka govt seeks more vaccine from Centre | Bengaluru News – Times of India

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BENGALURU: The spike in Covid-19 cases has set off alarm bells in Karnataka and put the healthcare system on high alert. But there is a problem: The state’s hospitals are running low on vaccines.
The health department has written to the Centre requesting that it augment vaccine supply. As on Monday, the total number of active cases in the state was 616, of which 394 were from Bengaluru. While exhorting those eligible to take the precautionary dose and contain Covid-19 spread, health commissioner D Randeep told TOI: “We’ve written to the Centre to send vaccines.”
National Health Mission director Naveen Bhat said the letter was written some time back with a request for 30 lakh doses, of which 20-25 lakh doses were supposed to be of Covishield. “The state received 5-10 lakh doses and these got expended,” he said. Interestingly, the low public demand for precautionary dose comes as a respite for the government as it awaits additional supplies.
Stocks at private hosps
Dr Govindaiah Yatheesh, president of Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association, said they have stocks to meet the current need. A source said: “The demand is abysmally low. There has been huge wastage of vaccines in the past six months, with doses being returned for fresh ones up to three times so far. The expiry date for the current batch is April 2023. Five or six private hospitals in the state have these Covishield doses left.”
But the demand – which had been non-existent for three months – is seeing some changes. “In the past five days, we’ve seen about 20 persons coming in for vaccination every day,” said Dr Yatheesh. On March 19, TK Anil Kumar, principal secretary, health and family welfare department, issued a circular stating that Covid-19 containment measures need to be put in place. He said the first week of March saw 493 cases reported, while the following week the cases were up to 604. This brought the state’s positivity rate to 2.7%, up from 0.6%. Some districts that saw more positive cases were Shivamogga, Mysuru and Uttara Kannada.
Till March 20, data showed that 1.1 crore persons out of the 4.8 crore eligible persons had been administered the precautionary dose.

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