Amid rising cases of coronavirus, Jharkhand Health Minister Banna Gupta urged the Centre to provide at least 50,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to continue with the immunisation drive in the state.

Gupta raised the issue at a review meeting chaired by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday.

"Jharkhand have run out of COVID vaccine doses. We had sent a request to provide at least 50,000 doses to the state two weeks back but its arrival is still awaited," he said.

With 11 new COVID-19 cases reported on Thursday, the total number of active patients in Jharkhand rose to 60, according to a health bulletin.

Two persons were cured of the disease in the past 24 hours, it said.

Gupta said that the majority of the patients were having mild symptoms, and were in treatment at their homes.

In the meeting with state health ministers and principal and additional chief secretaries, Mandaviya stressed on identifying emergency hotspots by monitoring trends of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases, ramping up testing and vaccination besides ensuring the readiness of hospital infrastructure.

Gupta said that the Union minister asked the state to conduct mock drills of infrastructure in hospitals and medical colleges on April 10 and 11 and review the health preparedness with district administrations on April 9.

The state minister also sought Mandaviya's intervention for approval of four RT-PCR laboratories at Khunti, Lohardaga, Koderma and Pakur from Indian Council of Medical Research.

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