The State government on Monday told the Madras High Court that it had received 5.16 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccines for inoculating people in the 18-44 age group.
Stating that it had paid 100% advance amount to two domestic vaccine manufacturers for procuring 13.85 lakh doses allotted by the Centre in the first phase, the government said it was yet to receive the rest of the 8.68 lakh doses.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy were also informed by Advocate-General R. Shunmugasundaram that the State had received 76.99 lakh vaccine doses for immunising those aged 45 and above, and that it had utilised 64.13 lakh doses so far. The submissions were made during the hearing of a suo motu public interest litigation petition taken up to monitor efforts to fight the pandemic.
On the availability of Remdesivir, the A-G said the Centre had allocated 2.05 lakh vials of the drug to Tamil Nadu, as against pending orders for 3.5 lakh vials placed by the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation. Nevertheless, the TNMSC was drawing from its reserves and supplying them to patients in private hospitals too, establishing sales counters in Chennai, Salem, Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Tirunelveli.
The court was further told that there were 43,858 oxygen-supported beds in the State, and the government had already started creating 12,500 additional beds, of which 5,592 had been put to use and the balance were expected to get ready by May 15.
“In addition, the setting up of another 10,000 oxygen beds is also simultaneously being taken up,” the A-G told the first Division Bench.
