PM meets top officials, asks them to use all facilities to beat COVID-19
New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi met top officials on Saturday and advised them to use all available facilities both in public and private sector to produce coronavirus vaccine in full capacity.
PM's directive came at a review meeting, a day after he overseen oxygen supplies, production and distribution. The government announced steps to support Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and also financial grants to specific facilties in private and public sector to increase vaccine production.
Till date India has administered a total of 12.25 crore vaccines, out of them 1.61 crore people have also recieved the second dose of the vaccine.
In a separate meeting with high burden states, the health ministry noted India is clocking the fastest case growth of 7.6% in new cases, 1.3 times higher than case growth rate of 5.5% reported in June 2020.
On Saturday, the number of daily cases swollen up by 2,34,692; over 1000 people lost their lives to coronavirus.
PM Modi has asked the officials to stay in close coordination with the states, where central teams have been deployed to reduce case load.
On a day when Centre’s discussions with pharma majors led to a lowering of Remdesivir rates, the PM reviewed the availability of the life-saving drug used in treatment of hospitalised Covid-19 patients. He emphasised on the need to utilise the full potential of the local pharmaceutical industry to ensure adequate availability of medicines.
The production capacity of Remdesivir has been increased to deliver around 74 lakh vials per month in May, against the normal capacity of around 27-29 lakh vials a month. “Supplies have also increased from 67,900 vials on April 11,2021 going up to over 2,06,000 vials on April 15, 2021 which are being particularly focused on states with high caseload and high demand,” the government said.
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