Andhra Pradesh government has spent ₹2,229 crore on tackling the Covid-19 pandemic in the last 14 months, according to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

He was speaking in the one-day Budget Session on Thursday.

“In the second wave alone over 47,000 beds have been made available for Covid patients in 649 dedicated hospitals across the State,’’ Reddy said.

In addition, over 52,000 beds have been set up in Covid Care Centres and also 18,000 oxygen concentrators were made available. The number of testing centres has been increased to over 150, where almost one lakh tests are being done every day, he added.

Stating that Andhra Pradesh had lost tier-1 cities post bifurcation in 2014, in the formation of Telangana, resulting in loss of access to advanced treatments, super-speciality hospitals and better medical infrastructure facilities, the Chief Minister said the State government had taken up the ‘Nadu-Nedu’ initiative for revamping all the government hospitals right from PHC level to teaching hospitals ensuring to have one teaching hospital and a medical college in each parliamentary constituency.

He further said that the government had recruited over 18,270 staff including doctors, technicians, specialists to treat in 629 Covid hospitals and also strengthened 104 call centre to address Covid related issues.

Andhra Pradesh was among the first States to go for global tenders for vaccines and bids will be open on June 3, he added. The supply of oxygen and distribution of vaccines are centralised and the State has been making all efforts in fighting Covid.

Over seven crore doses would be required to cover all those above 18 years, but the Centre has given only 76.29 lakh doses to date, which is around 10 per cent of the total requirement, Reddy said.

In regard to vaccine production, the Chief Minister said that currently, only two companies are manufacturing vaccines across the country with just seven crore doses per month, while Bharat Biotech is producing one lakh doses, Serum Institute is making six lakh doses per month.

He assured that vaccination will be done free of cost once sufficient doses reach the State and meanwhile he urged the public to take appropriate precautions as living with Covid would be part of everyone’s lives until vaccination was done.

comment COMMENT NOW