Chennai: Since the last week of July, the state government has been sourced by more than RS8.3 Crore from the corporation to buy more than 1.3 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccine from a private hospital.
This vaccine is offered free for people.
But the average daily vaccination by the private sector is only around 21,000, while the government center averages 2.7 lakh a day.
“Most people prefer to take vaccines in government centers because it is free and hassle free,” said Minister of Health MA Subramanian.
“We have repeatedly requested centers to increase doses to public centers and maintain a minimum dose for the private sector,” he said.
In June, the center said he would buy 75% of the vaccine produced in this country and distributed it to countries for free vaccination programs.
The remaining 25% will be sold to a private hospital.
For July, Tamil Nadu was allocated 72 doses of lakh, where 17 lakh was intended for private hospitals.
The Tamil Nadu government later said it would use CSR funds to buy vaccines from the private sector.
Some districts across the state managed to arrange free camps in private hospitals.
But the number of vaccinations does not increase dramatically.
But with home-to-home vaccination for vulnerable groups, exclusive vaccination camps for teachers, staff and student nonteaching, and vaccination clinics all the time in government hospitals, the government count continues to increase.
In August, the center allocated 22 additional doses above and above allotment, taking a total of more than 80 lakh doses.
“The government hospital has used more than 95% of the doses received,” said Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan.
However, Tamil Nadu must vaccinate more than 7 lakh people every day to complete vaccination for all adults at the end of the year.
“If we have to achieve this, we might need a one-time allocation of at least 1 additional dose crore.
We are not equivalent to many other countries responsible because we got fewer vaccines in the first five months due to doubts and waste,” he said.