VIJAYAWADA: State health authorities are facing a major challenge of administering nearly 1.50 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines before their shelf life expires in six months.
AP has so far received two consignments of 8,85,500 doses of Covishield vaccine with an expiry date of April and 1,64,320 doses of Covaxin that will expire by end of May. These vaccines are to be administered before they expire. Once these doses expire, they need to be mandatorily discarded.
Though authorities planned to administer Covid-19 vaccine to 3.88 lakh healthcare workers in Phase-I from January 16 onwards, so far, only 1.79 lakh of them have been given the jab in the state. The first phase of Covid vaccination ended on Saturday. It is now the turn of pulse polio vaccination from January 31 to February 2. The second phase of Covid-19 vaccination will be taken up either from February 3 or 4 when frontline workers from panchayat raj, municipal administration, revenue and police departments are…