[Watch] Odisha To Float Global Tender To Procure COVID Vaccines

Bhubaneswar: With the vaccination drive in Odisha getting disrupted due to short supply of vaccines, the state government has decided to float a global tender to procure vaccines developed by the pharmaceutical companies.

A decision to this effect was taken at a virtual State Cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday.

Talking to the media after the meeting, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra said the Health and Family Welfare department will form a technical committee. The committee will invite tenders from different agencies to procure the vaccines developed by the multi-national pharmaceutical companies.

Once the tender is finalised, the state government will directly procure the vaccines from these companies to meet the shortfall.

It may be mentioned that although the state government has ordered Covishield and Covaxin vaccines from the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech respectively, these two companies are not able to provide the required number of vaccines in time as a result of which the state is not able to meet the vaccination target of 2 lakh per day.

Apart from these two companies, the COVID vaccines, the following COVID vaccines prepared by some multi-national companies are also used across the globe.

They are Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford–AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Johnson & Johnson and Convidecia.

The Chief Secretary further said the State Cabinet also urged the Centre to exempt vaccines from all tax liabilities to reduce burden on states’ finances and facilitate the Odisha’s drive towards universal vaccination. It also requested for suitable sharing of various cess and surcharges at this juncture to augment states’ resources.