The State government on Monday told the Madras High Court that Tamil Nadu’s population in the age group of 18 to 44 is estimated to be 3.65 crore, and it is planning to cover 70% (2.5 crore) in the first phase of the universal adult inoculation drive against COVID-19.
Appearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram said the government would require five crore doses of the vaccine to provide two shots to 2.5 crore people.
He said the government had planned to procure 1.5 crore from the two domestic manufacturers of the vaccine as per the allocations made by the Centre and the rest of 3.5 crore through global tenders. The remaining population 30% (1.15 crore) population would be covered in the second phase.
On his part, Additional Solicitor General R. Sankaranarayanan informed the court that the Centre had allocated 5.89 lakh doses of vaccine to Tamil Nadu to be supplied during the second fortnight of May. Providing a break-up, he said the allocation included 4.99 lakh doses of Covishield and 89,290 doses of Covaxin.
