Tamil Nadu receives 4.95L doses of Covid vax to continue inoculation

Tamil Nadu, which had announced the suspension of vaccination drive from Wednesday, is to continue inoculating people after it received 4.95 lakh vaccines from the central government on Tuesday night.

This includes 4,20,570 doses of Covishield and 75,000 doses of Covaxin.

The state had earlier announced that it would stop vaccination drive from Wednesday as it was running short of vaccines and that it would receive its quota of vaccines only on June 6.

Tamil Nadu Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Ma Subramaniam and the state health secretary J. Radhakrishnan had in separate statements told the public that the vaccination drive would be suspended from Wednesday.

Subramaniam while speaking to IANS on Wednesday said, "The total vaccine stock in the state has now touched 6.50 lakh doses which include 4.95,570 doses for those aged 45 and above and we will continue with the vaccination process on Wednesday also. We were expecting the supply only by June 6 and hence had earlier announced the suspension of vaccine drive after Tuesday but as we received the supply on Tuesday night, the vaccine administration will continue without any hindrance."

The public health department said that the state has so far received 1.01 crore doses of vaccine and 90.50 lakh doses have already been administered.

At least 1.5 to 2 lakh doses of vaccine would be administered per day from Wednesday and the district wise details of vaccine availability will be displayed on the website of the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.

The Minister also said that vaccines will be distributed to districts on the basis of population and hence Chennai would get the maximum doses followed by Coimbatore.

Ma Subramaniam said, "Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has instructed to provide special care to Western Tamil Nadu as there is a slight surge in the cases in this region and hence a higher allocation would be given to districts like Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Erode which falls in Western Tamil Nadu."

A total of 98,183 people were vaccinated on Tuesday in the state which includes 47,567 in the 18-44 age group and the balance for those above 45 years of age.