Vax drive on hold as TN runs out of stock

NEXT BATCH ON JUNE 9

Vax drive on hold as TN runs out of stock

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:08.06.2021

Tamil Nadu had a little more than 30,000 vaccine doses left on Monday morning, and stocks were nearly emptied out in several districts by evening. By 8pm on Monday, the state announced that 28,000 people received vaccines across the state.

For the second time in the past ten days, the state has announced that it may have to pause the vaccination drive until it receives fresh stock of vaccine from the Centre. The immunisation wing at the directorate of public health said as per the Centre’s schedule for Tamil Nadu, the next batch of around 63,000 doses of Covaxin is expected on June 9 and another 40,000 doses on June10. By June 11, the state is expecting 3.65 doses of Covishield. “The dates are tentative. We have been told that these dates can be preponed or postponed based on availability,” said Dr K Vinay Kumar, joint director (immunisation).

On Monday, several people across the state were turned away by hospitals including tertiary care centres as they did not have vaccines. On June 3, vaccines were available in 2,780 vaccine sessions compared to 1,069 on Monday. With lockdown in force in many districts, people were advised to wait until the vaccination centre close to their homes receives fresh stock. “More people want to get vaccinated now. We have long queues outside vaccine centres, but many centres are turning people away because there is no vaccine,” said state health minister Ma Subramanian. “We don’t stock vaccines at warehouses. All of them are distributed to the districts and cold chain points as soon as stock arrives,” he said.

So far, the state has received 1.01 crore doses of the vaccine under the state and central quota. Of this, nearly 97.35 lakh doses were administered until Monday. In addition, 3 lakh doses have been wasted since inoculation began in January 2021.

In the last week of May, the state said it will pause the vaccination drive after stocks dwindled. But on June 1, the state received 4.25 lakh doses of covid vaccine. The centre promised to double the state’s allotment to 42 lakh in June. This included 25.8 lakh of the Centre’s vaccines and 16.7 lakh doses the state was to buy for people in the 18-44 years age group. “We have to see the Centre’s revised schedule after the PM's announcement on Monday on centralising vaccine procurement,” said health secretary J Radhakrishnan.

So far, 17 lakh doses have been given to people in the18-44 years age group, 26 lakh doses in the senior citizens group and 34 lakh people in the 45-59 years age group. Along with doses given to healthcare providers and frontline workers, this takes the cumulative tally to 97.35 lakh doses.