Coimbatore: A controversy broke out on Wednesday based on Tirupur corporation’s decision to administer around 800 doses of Covaxin, initially allotted to four urban primary health centres, to employees of three garment factories’ instead.There were media reports of the civic body taking away vaccines meant for the public and selling them to private garment factories.However, the district administration denied the accusation.
District collector K Vijaykarthikeyan said he had ordered a probe into the complaint of “vaccines being sold” to garment factories by the deputy director of health services, Dr Jegadeesh.“After enquiries, we have learned that the corporation had scheduled institutional vaccination for three garment factories on Saturday, in which there is no wrongdoing.
Especially because reopened factories, which were earlier sources for Covid-19 clusters, are high-risk sectors,” he said.“The issue seems to be the diversion of the vaccines allotted to the UPHCs, without informing the medical officers.
However, the written report will be submitted to me later in the night,” he added.He said that there was no evidence or pointers towards vaccines being sold.The issue arose after an internal communication from the health department surfaced showing 728 doses of vaccines remaining unutilized across four primary health centres on Saturday.The four UPHCs were—Sundamedu UPHC which had 205 doses, Anna Nesavalar Colony UPHC which had 99 doses, Kovilvali UPHC which had 174 doses and Periyandipalayam UPHC which had 261 doses.“Based on this, we think many residents gathered in front of these urban PHCs for their shots but had to be turned away because the vaccines did not arrive on Saturday,” a corporation official said.“So, people misunderstood that the 728 doses remaining were sold off to three garment factories,” he said.The corporation confirmed that they had organized vaccination camps on Saturday at three garment factories MS Garments, Prisma Garments and Network Clothing Company and administered 770 doses in total.“It was a case of miscommunication because the corporation took the decision to divert vaccine stocks without informing the UPHCs’ medical staff, which the public got wind of and misunderstood,” said an official.Health secretary J Radhakrishnan also said that prioritizing institutional vaccination over public was a district’s priority and unless there was evidence of “sale”, there was no controversy.