kochi as the demand for vaccines grows amid the unavailability of vaccination slots at government centres 10 private hospitals in the districts of ernakulam thiruvananthapuram and kozhikode have purchased vaccines directly from the manufacturersanother 20 private hospitals in the state are expected to receive their orders in a fortnight this is expected to speed up the vaccination process in the state as of april 30 1712 of the population had received at least one dose of the vaccine four weeks later it has only reached1909the state government had set may 30 as the target to fully vaccinate about 114 crore people above 45 years almost three months later only 22 of the target population is fully vaccinated recently health minister veena george admitted in a tv interview that our main challenge is vaccine availabilitymost of the major hospitals in the state have decided to procure vaccines covishield covaxin and sputnik directly from the manufacturers said dr m i sahadulla chairman and managing director kims healthcare group and president association of healthcare providers india kerala chapter we even made advance payments we are targeting the general public who can afford to pay for the vaccination and also tying up with industries and firms to vaccinate their employees and relativesmost of the hospitals had received the first batch of covishield vaccines and a few covaxin doses too more than 25 companies in the three districts have already tied up with private hospitals and signed mousnowadays each private hospital on average gets about 300 to 400 calls inquiring about the vaccine availability we plan to vaccinate 300 to 400 people a day for the next two months said praveen kumar a managing director kinder multispeciality hospital kochiexperience from the second wave shows that those who had at least one dose of the covid vaccine reduced the risk of developing covid complications with very few needing hospitalizationsprivate players are opting more for covishield and sputnik rather than indias first indigenous covid19 vaccine covaxin because it is in short supply due to which the waiting period to get the doses is long once the order is placed bharat biotech the manufacturer of covaxin has said in a press statement on friday that the production batches of covaxin that were initiated during march this year will be ready for supply only in june hospitals have to pay lakhs in advancemore private hospitals would have placed orders if not for the state governments confusing vaccine policy that said about procuring vaccines directly from the manufacturers and giving it freely to the citizens as announced in the budget said dr jayakrishnan av chairman indian medical associations committee for vaccination promotion and coordination due to this the majority are taking a waitandwatch approach the others are not placing bulk orders to ensure that there is no wastagemeanwhile to ensure that small and medium private hospitals also have enough vaccine stock kerala private hospital association kpha has initiated talks with the manufacturers we are planning to purchase