Karnataka floats global tender to fill the void of vaccine supply in the state

May 12, 2021

Bengaluru: Karnataka government that has reluctantly begun vaccination of the citizens in the 18-45 age group is struggling with the vaccination drive due to an acute shortage of vaccines. While the state has placed an order for 2 crore Covishield and 1 crore Covaxin the supply is only coming by the trickle.

Earlier today, a high-level meeting of the COVID task force was held where some key decisions have been taken.

Karnataka floats global tender for vaccine
The task force committee headed by the Deputy CM Dr Ashwath Naryan today approved to go ahead with a short-term 7 days global tender for 2 crore COVID vaccines.

“Till now we had depended only on vaccines supplied by the Central Government and it was not procured from the open market by floating tender. Now, it has been instructed to float the tender and to complete the process within 7 days,” said the Deputy CM.
As of now, it’s not clear which vaccine manufacturing company is capable of providing the entire batch of 2 crore vaccines, or if there will be multiple companies involved.

Along with the decision to buy international vaccines, the committee also has decided to procure 1 lakh pulse oximeters and these will be distributed to all the districts and taluks.
10 lakhs of Ivermectins will also be purchased, 35 lakh zinc tablets and 1 crore Calcigen tablets will be procured and will be made available in all district hospitals, taluk hospitals, PHCs, and community health centers. In addition to this, they also plan to procure 37 lakh RT-PCR kits.