“The state government has already placed orders for the supply of 35,000 vials of the drug to various vendors but since the supply is according to the allocation made by the Government of India, the state has received only 1,790 vials which is woefully inadequate to successfully treat the growing numbers of mucormycosis patients,” said Stalin, in the letter.

In the second wave of COVID-19, a section of people who have successfully recovered from COVID-19 are affected by mucormycosis. So far, 673 cases have been detected in the state and the demand for liposomal Amphotericin B drug has increased.

To increase the availability of the drug to Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister urged Modi to instruct the concerned officials to immediate allocate at least 30,000 vials to Tamil Nadu to enable the state to provide adequate treatment in various hospitals.

The Union Health Ministry on Thursday termed as “factually incorrect and without any basis” media reports alleging that there is a shortage of vaccines in Tamil Nadu. As on June 2, more than one crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed to Tamil Nadu, of which 93.3 lakhs doses have been consumed, the Ministry said. A total of 7.24 lakh doses are currently available with the state, it added.

Tamil Nadu has also been provided information of the total number of doses of vaccines available to the state from the Government of India channel, which is free of cost, for the first and the second fortnight of June 2021, the Ministry said.

For June 1-15, the number of doses available for the state through the GOI channel is 7.48 lakh and for June 15-30, 18.36 lakh, it added.