April 21, 2021: The Assam government has urged the Centre to send an adequate number of COVID-19 vaccine vials as the state's stock will be exhausted in six-seven days, a senior official said on Tuesday.

The state has received altogether 22,93,470 vaccines -- 17,52,830 doses of Covishield and 5,40,640 doses of Covaxin -- so far, Health and Family Welfare Department Principal Secretary Samir K Sinha said.

'Out of these, we have used a total of 16,88,148 vaccines. The state currently has a stock of 5,03,550 vaccines which will last for the next 6-7 days,' he said at a press conference in Guwahati.

The official said that 13,58,782 vaccines were administered as first dose and 3,29,366 units as second dose.

He said that 1,01,772 vaccines were wasted.

'From one vial of Covishield, we can inoculate 10 people, while the number is 20 for Covaxin. When only 16 people come at a centre administering Covaxin, four doses are wasted after opening the vial as the vaccines have to be kept in a particular temperature,' Sinha said.

Serum Institute of India has entered into a collaboration with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca to manufacture Covishield, while Covaxin is being indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) - National Institute of Virology (NIV).

The vaccination drive is going on through 1,200 centres across the state.

'This is a large number for a small state like Assam.

If we open more centres, the wastage will obviously be more,' Sinha said.

On the shortage of vaccines, the official said that the state government is in constant touch with the Centre for sending more stock in the coming days.

'Three days back, we received five lakh vaccines -- three lakh Covishield and two lakh Covaxin. We hope to receive more stock in the coming days,' he said.

He said that the state has inoculated an average of nearly 21,000 people during the last 10 days on the backdrop of the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

The daily average of positive cases has shot up to 704 during April 13-19 from 308 during April 6-12, Sinha said. On Monday, 1,367 people were detected with the infection.

Giving an update of the hospital facilities, he said that the state has a total of 4,445 beds including 252 ICU beds and 104 ventilator beds. PTI