TN has enough doses of Covid vaccine for a week: Officials

CHENNAI: Amid concerns of a nationwide vaccine shortage, officials of the health department here said on Tuesday that Tamil Nadu has enough stock for the next seven days. “We have 11,51,450 doses, of which 9.4 lakh are Covishield and 2.1 lakh are Covaxin,” Director of Public Health Dr TS Selvavinayagam told Express.

He added that there is no shortage in any of the 4,300 institutions in the State eligible to vaccinate people. “We get stock regularly from the Centre, based on our three-day usage pattern,” he explained. However, some private hospitals in Chennai alleged they don’t have enough stock of vaccines. But health department officials, in turn, said they only give vaccines to certain private hospitals, based on their track record of inoculating people.

“They have to show their track record and update their vaccination lists on the government portal. If their performance is 100 per cent, we will definitely give them stock,” said an official. Meanwhile, with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine set to be available, officials are hopeful it will give a boost to the vaccination drive. “It is said that the Sputnik vaccine has an efficacy of more than 90 per cent,” said Health Secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan. He also urged private hospitals to approach the Health Department if they are short of vaccines.

Besides the fear of a shortage of vaccines, many people at Primary Health Centres were in a fix as they were only allowed to get the jab if they provided an OTP sent to their Aadhaar-linked mobile number. But they did not even have Aadhaar-linked mobile numbers, and hence, did not receive OTPs. “At least 150 of us were told to wait at the Guduvancherry PHC due to this. Doctors said that today (Tuesday) alone they will vaccinate us without OTPs,” said a person who went to get inoculated.

40L vaccinated in TN
So far, more than 40 lakh people have been vaccinated across Tamil Nadu. Of them, 1.5 lakh received the jab on Tuesday, and 1.6 lakh on Monday