Teesha
P. Subrahmanya Sastry, a Guntur based Pediatrician filed a PIL in the High Court pleading for a direction to Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech to supply the vaccines directly to the state regardless of the policy framework of Union of India.
The Petition is scheduled to be heard on May 14th by a Vacation bench.
The petition came in reflecting the state’s claim that certain irregularities in the Centre’s policies has hampered the state’s Vaccination drive.
Dr. Sastry also requested to affirm the centre to deregulate the supply of essential drugs like Remedsivir so that the State could directly procure it from the manufacturers.
Else to direct the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Department of Pharmaceuticals to allocate enough numbers of Remedsivir and Tocilizumab and supply of 700 Metric Tons of oxygen per day considering the unprecedented increasing in the cases.
The PIL highlights that the current quantity and date of supply of vaccines to states is under the grip of Central Government due to which the states despite of financial preparedness and readiness in terms of transportation and storage are unable to procure it directly from the manufacturers.
The petitioner also observed that the states vaccination drive cannot be completed if the allocations by centre aren’t sufficient.
Further Dr. Sastry contends that the allocations to states is disproportionate. Stating an example, he reflected that Gujarat which has 1.46,500 active cases got approximately 4.19 lakh Remedsivir injections, whereas AP received only 1.87 lakh injections despite of 2.35 lakh active cases.
Talking about the oxygen supply Sastry told that the state is short of 200 MT Oxygen out of the total 428 MT allotted by the Centre.