Tamil Nadu will run out of COVID-19 vaccines in two days and is likely to suspend vaccination services until fresh supply reaches the State, health officials have indicated. “The State has nearly 4.93 lakh doses of vaccines as of now. This will be sufficient for a maximum of two days,” Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan said.
He said that on Monday, the Centre indicated that it would allocate 42.58 lakh doses of vaccines for Tamil Nadu for June. This was double the number of doses allotted for the month of May. “But the catch is that the first lot of supply through Bharat Biotech is only after June 6, and the other supply is likely on June 9,” he said.
Indicating that the State stands the risk of suspending vaccination in the interim period, he said, “We will restart vaccination the moment we get supplies.” While the State had asked for supply from June 1, the Centre said that there were certain supply issues across the country and vaccines could be supplied only gradually. He noted that though vaccination was slow in the initial period in the State, many were keen on getting vaccinated now. “We have asked Collectors to fully utilise the available doses, to bring the services to a common point, issue tokens and administer the vaccines,” he said. The official said that the vaccine stock would turn nil in a number of centres in the State.
As on May 30, the State had 2,69,885 doses to cover the 18-44 years age group and 2,24,611 doses for the above 45 years category. Officials said the existing vaccine stock would last for two days for both the categories.
A total of 1,62,375 persons were vaccinated across the State on Monday. Of this, 87,781 persons were in the age group of 18 to 44 years, taking the overall number of persons vaccinated in this category to 12,85,159.Among the others, a total of 52,154 persons aged 45 to 59 years and 18,522 senior citizens received the vaccines. The vaccination sessions increased to 4,877. The State’s overall coverage stood at 89,32,852.