The COVID-19 vaccination drive remained suspended in Coimbatore district on Saturday owing to unavailability of vaccines. The district administration said on Saturday that the drive will be continued in the corporation limits on Sunday.
On Saturday, the vaccination drive did not take place in the corporation limits and in rural areas of the district, said sources with the Health Department.
The district administration had said in a communication around 9.30 p.m. on Friday that it had nil stock of vaccines to conduct vaccination camps on Saturday.
According to a senior official with the Health Department, the district received 5,000 doses of vaccines late on Saturday, after issuing the communication. The stock was reserved for Sunday as it could not communicate the availability of the vaccine to the public.
The district administration said 3,700 doses of Covaxin will be administered through 36 vaccination centres within the corporation limits. It said that the doses will be administered to people aged above 45, who have taken their first shot of Covaxin and have completed 28 days of window period.
The Health official added that the district was expecting more stocks of vaccine through the interventions of the District Collector and Monitoring Officers.
According to the district administration, 5,41,702 doses of vaccines were administered to people aged above 45 and 82,573 doses were given to people in the 18-44 age group in the district so far. Details shared by the administration showed that vaccination for the 18-44 age group did not take place for five days from June 1.
Tiruppur
On Saturday, the district’s 32 government vaccination centres had only 6,520 doses of vaccines including 4,550 doses of Covishield and 1,970 Covaxin doses. Despite the appeal made by Collector K. Vijayakarthikeyan on Friday to not overcrowd the centres, some of the vaccination centres such as Tiruppur Government Medical College Hospital witnessed additional crowds on Saturday.
Health officials said that the vaccine stock was exhausted on Saturday and that additional 2,000 doses of Covaxin were received.
On a priority basis, the Covaxin doses would be administered to those above 45 years of age in need of second dose of vaccination, the officials noted.
As of Friday, 2,56,273 beneficiaries received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines in Tiruppur district, which is around 11.5% of the 22,20,520 target beneficiaries, they said.
