With most of the primary health centres (PHC) having exhausted the COVID-19 vaccine doses, Tiruppur district faced a vaccine shortage on Saturday as authorities await supply of additional doses.
Sources in the Health Department said that there were only around 2,000 vaccine doses in the district on Saturday morning. All government and private vaccination centres were instructed to exhaust the available doses by the end of the day.
With 130 government-run vaccination centres (including government hospitals and PHCs) and 30 private vaccination centres in the district, most of the PHCs and private centres ran out of vaccine doses by Saturday. There were only around 50 doses in Tiruppur Government Medical College Hospital that were available on Saturday morning, the sources said.
No vaccination was carried out at any of the Urban PHCs run by the Tiruppur Corporation on Saturday, according to the civic officials. Those who visited the UPHCs were sent back and told vaccines were unavailable, the officials added.
Sources in the District Administration said that additional vaccine doses for Tiruppur district were expected to arrive on Sunday. However, the authorities await a communication from the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine regarding the quantity of doses and other details, the sources added.
Over 1 lakh beneficiaries have received the vaccine shots in Tiruppur district as 1,05,974 beneficiaries were vaccinated as of Friday, according to the Health Department. The rise in demand for vaccination following the second COVID-19 wave along with intensified vaccination drives, particularly for industrial employees, were attributed as the reasons for the vaccine shortage, according to the sources.
