Chennai: Covid-19 Vaccination camps were called off in Chennai today due to the shortage of the doses.
Health Minister Ma Subramanian who took part in a vaccination drive at the Madras High Court campus today morning said that only two lakh vaccines were available in Tamilandu and they would get over by afternoon. “Though people were eager to get vaccinated there is scarcity of vials,” he said.
He further said that more than 90,000 people have got vaccinated in Chepauk which is the highest number for any Assembly Constituency.
He added that out of the 1.44 crore vaccines in Tamilnadu 1.41 crore has been administered till now.
“Vaccination drive has been halted at 45 locations. In Chennai, only 5,000 doses are available,” he said.
Subramanian added that the shortage is due to the delay in receiving the doses for June from Union government.
He said that vaccination drive can be resumed only if the Union government sends vaccines.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister M K Stalin today wrote a letter to Union Health Minister Dr Harshvardhan, urging him to allot vaccines to Tamilnadu at the earliest.
It may be noted that Tamilnadu received 4,20,570 doses of Covishield and 75,000 doses of Covaxin recently for vaccinating people aged 45 and above. Following this 4.26 lakh doses were received in second week of June.
With this, the total number of vaccine doses supplied to the State reached 1.01 crore.
While vaccines were being distributed on the basis of the population of each district, with Chennai receiving the highest number of doses, followed by Coimbatore, the Chief Minister advised that priority be given to the western region, which accounted for higher number of fresh cases.