The High Court of Karnataka on Friday directed the State government to submit the assessment made on requirement of COVID-19 vaccine for the second dose as there is a large gap in the number of persons administered with the first and second doses.
A Special Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Aravind Kumar issued the direction after amicus curiae Vikram Huilgol pointed out that the State may need to seek more doses from the Centre to ensure timely administration of the second dose of vaccine.
Mr. Huilgol pointed out from the government’s COVID-19 media bulletin of July 8 that 1,60,25,665 people need the second dose of vaccine in July–August as 2,04,62,938 people had already received the first dose of vaccine during April–May and only 44,37,273 people had received their second dose.
The Bench was also informed that the Central government had allotted approximately 49.77 lakh doses of Covishield and 10.2 lakh Covaxin doses for July, both through government quota and private health establishments quota.
Meanwhile, Additional Advocate-General Dhyan Chinnappa pointed out that total available vaccine in the State as on July 9 was 6.72 lakh doses of Covishield and 2.3 lakh doses of Covaxin. The Bench then said the State government may have to approach the Central government to allot more doses to ensure that there was no delay in administering the second dose.
Regular immunisation
As a report submitted by the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority indicated that some children, particularly those belonging to construction workers, had missed regular immunisation due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Bench asked the government to look into the recommendations of the KSLSA.
A committee of the KSLSA, headed by the former judge A.V. Chandrashekar, had recommended to the Labour and the Woman and Child Development departments and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to conduct a survey to identify children who missed their regular immunisation and to create awareness about the importance of regular immunisation.
