Bhubaneswar, Aug 28 (IANS): As the Union government has nearly doubled the supply of vaccines to the states, the Odisha government has set a fresh target to administer 3.5 lakh Covid doses per day.

State health & family welfare, additional chief secretary, P.K. Mohapatra on Saturday asked all collectors, municipal commissioners and chief district medical and public health officers to ramp up vaccination drive accordingly to achieve more than the daily target fixed for their district.

In a communication to the above mentioned officials, Mohapatra said the faster vaccine consumption will lead to higher allocation for the State and the issue of syringe availability has also now been resolved.

"In view of this, it is of utmost importance that we step up the pace of vaccination in all districts," he said.

Mohapatra has also asked the officials to give priority for vaccination of the second dose due to beneficiaries, teachers & non-teaching staff of government & private schools and pregnant women. He has fixed targets for each district to achieve 3.5 lakh doses administration per day in the state.

While 30,000 doses per day target has been set for Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), 28,500 for Ganjam district, 20,000 for Cuttack, 19,000 for Mayurbhanj, 18,000 for Balasore, 16,000 for Sundergarh, 15,000 for Jajpur. All other districts have set a daily target of below 15,000.

Since January 16, the State has administered over 2.14 crore doses. Out of which 51.54 lakh citizens have received two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.