The Coimbatore and Trichy Corporations announced that the vaccination drives scheduled for June 5 will stay cancelled because of insufficient in-hand vaccine doses available with the respective districts. The corporations said that information on resumption of the vaccination drive will be announced once vaccine stocks reach the district. In a release, Coimbatore Corporation Commissioner P Kumaravel Pandian said, “The vaccination drive will not take place in the five zones of Coimbatore on June 5.” In another release, Trichy Corporation Commissioner S Sivasubramanian said, “Through special camps, COVID-19 vaccines were being administered to the people. However, considering the vaccines in hand, the drives scheduled for rural and urban areas will remain cancelled. Once the doses of the vaccine reach the district, information will be sent on the schedule for the vaccine drive.”
Earlier, the Tamil Nadu government announced that the vaccine drive will be suspended from June 2 to June 5 due to a shortage of vaccines since the state expected the next consignment of vaccines from the Union government only by June 6. However, the Union government sent 4.2 lakh vaccine doses of Covishield on June 1.
Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian received the vaccines and the doses were stocked at DMS campus before they were distributed to the districts.
TNM also previously reported that Tamil Nadu was supposed to receive 25 lakh vaccine doses to vaccinate below the age of 45. However, the Union government allocated only 13 lakh vaccines, and many districts like Thanjavur and Tiruvarur also ran out of vaccines. Apart from the shortage, Tamil Nadu last month also reported a worrying trend of vaccine wastage with 8.83% of vaccines wasted. The wasted vaccine could have reportedly been used to vaccinate 6.04 lakh people.
Only Lakshadweep had a higher wastage percentage at 9.76% according to data released by the Union Ministry of Health in May 2021. Meanwhile, Karnataka reported a wastage of just 0.14% followed by Maharashtra with 0.22% wastage.