The Kerala government has decided to buy one crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines directly from the manufacturers.
This was decided at a cabinet meeting in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday.
Seventy lakh vaccine doses will be sourced from Serum Institute of India (SII), which produces Covishield, and the rest will be bought from Bharath Biotech, which produces Covaxine.
The government hopes to procure the first consignment of 10 lakh doses in May and to complete the purchase by July. Vaccine deficiency has hit Kerala's inoculation drive.
No Lockdown
The cabinet also decided not to enforce a state-wide lockdown to check the spread of COVID-19 ‘because it will cause immense suffering to the people’.
However, it resolved to impose strict local-level curbs.
(to be updated)