Thiruvananthapuram: Shashi Tharoor has demanded more vaccines from Centre for Kerala ahead of the festival of Onam that falls on the third week of this month.
The senior Congress leader has joined the state government's appeal for increasing the number of vaccinations in the coming weeks.
Tharoor on Tuesday tweeted: "Kerala has 20,000+ daily cases. Initial success in curbing Covid means that fewer people have antibodies, 43% vs 68% nationally. The Centre must assist with more vaccines: we should vaccinate 10m ppl across age groups before Onam to reduce high-risk cases & healthcare burdens."
Tharoor tagged Union Minister of Health Mansukh Mandaviya in a second tweet that read: "I appeal to the Union Govt to provide additional doses of vaccine to Kerala State to make the target of 10 million people possible before Onam. Otherwise, India's largest #Covid caseload could become even larger & spark a national crisis."
Last week, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had said that the state was facing "an acute shortage of vaccines". He had said that a fresh stock of five lakh doses that had reached the state was exhausted in a matter of days.
Kerala has been seeing over 20,000 cases daily for the past few days, a trend that was set in following the relaxations allowed in the run-up to the festival of Bakrid last month.
