Chennai, June 26 (BPNS)
Tamil Nadu which has stopped vaccination in many parts of the state including its capital, Chennai on Monday due to the shortage of vaccines is still facing a shortage of vaccines for inoculation on Tuesday also.
While the state has received 2 lakh doses of vaccine on Monday evening, the possibility of an accelerated vaccination taking place in the state is remote.
Tamil Nadu Minister for Medical and Family Welfare, Ma Subramanian had in a statement released on Tuesday said that while a high level of awareness has been created in the state, even among the tribes and the illiterate people of the state, the shortage of vaccines are creating a letdown of the good work done by the Public health department and other departments of the state.
Tamil Nadu is expected to receive 75 lakh doses of vaccines in July and the state has now touched a vaccination level of 4.3 lakh vaccines a day during the last week of June except for Monday when it could vaccinate a minimum percentage of the population.
Joint Director of immunization, Government of Tamil Nadu, Dr. K. Vinay Kumar while speaking to IANS said, “ We have vaccinated more people than the doses we have received as our nurses have drawn 12 doses from a vial instead of 10 as manufacturers always pack 1ml additional in each vial and this extra ml is used to vaccinate more people as our nurses have learned to make use of that also. This has led to reduce in wastage of vaccines also.”
Across the state in Tamil Nadu, 6.06 crore people above the age of 18 years are eligible for vaccination and the target is 12.12 crore doses. Nilgiris have completed 23% of its dosage target, Chennai 22% of its target, Virudhanagar 17%, and Coimbatore 16% of their dosage targets and that according to a report on the percentage of vaccination released by the State Public Health Department, Tamil Nadu has completed 12% of its dosage target by Sunday.
This means that on average 4% of all the eligible population are fully vaccinated in the state. However, there is a discrepancy between different health units and of the 45 health units in the state, 30 have less than 3% of its population fully vaccinated.
