Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, thanking him profusely for extending support during the state’s fight against Covid-19 pandemic.
The Chief Minister said, in his letter, that Andhra Pradesh had demonstrated its capacity for large-scale vaccination by inoculating 13,72,481 people on a single day on June 20, another 6,32,780 people on April 14 and 5,79,161 people on May 27. He said that AP could easily replicate this performance frequently if more vaccines were made available to the state.
He said, “Andhra Pradesh is in a unique position to vaccinate lakhs of people daily due to the set-up of 15,004 village & ward secretariats all over the state aided by 2.66 lakh volunteers responsible for 50 households each, more than 40,000 ASHA workers, 19,000 ANMs and vast number of PHCS, CHCS etc. Under the Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy implemented with effect from 1st May, 25% vaccine production was permitted to be procured by the private hospitals and the industrial establishments (through their hospitals). This 25% allocation of available vaccines to the private hospitals has been continued in the “Revised Guidelines for Implementation of National Covid Vaccination Programme" which are being implemented with effect from 21st June.”
“So far only 2,67,075 people have been vaccinated at private hospitals within the state of Andhra Pradesh. It may also be noted that 17,71,580 doses have been earmarked for private hospitals for the month of July. The past experience and the demand for vaccines at private hospitals in Andhra Pradesh clearly indicate that such huge quantities of vaccine cannot be utilised by private hospitals. Similar sentiments were expressed by some other states,” he said.
The Chief Minister requested the Prime Minister to procure and supply the vaccine stocks not lifted by the private hospitals for implementation of vaccination drive through the government channels. He stated that such an approach would go a long way in speeding up the vaccination drive and enabling effective utilisation of the available resources to achieve complete vaccine coverage at the earliest.
Hoping for a positive reciprocation from Modi, Jagan Mohan Reddy concluded the letter by saying that such a decision would be immensely popular amongst the public and enhance the image of the Central government.
