In a major setback to the state's significant vaccination drive to beat the COVID-19 pandemic, Tamil Nadu has suspended the vaccination programme for the next four days owing to the dearth of vaccines. The vaccination drive will be suspended from June 2 to June 5 and is expected to resume on June 6 after the state receives the next round of consignment from the vaccine producers. 

The development of sudden pause in the rapid vaccination drive in the state has come despite the health department has appealed to the Center to take steps to dispatch timely and adequate stock of vaccines to the state. The state health department has alarmed that without the next round of consignment, it would be pushed to suspend the drive at a high time when the government aims to inoculate doses to the eligible people. 

Speaking to the reporters on Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Health Minister M Subramanian said, "The remaining vaccines will get over by Tuesday evening. Till now, Tamil Nadu has received a consignment of 96.18 lakh vaccine doses and of these, 89 lakh doses have already been administered. The remaining vaccine doses will be over by today. So, we cannot administer the vaccine doses for the next four days (from June 2 to June 5)." 

While bracing up the sudden pause, the state is expected to resume its vaccination drive only after it receives its next consignment of doses. The next consignment is scheduled to arrive from Bharat Biotech, the producers of Covaxin, by June 6 and from the Serum Institute of India, the producers of Covishield, by June 9. The dearth and suspension of vaccines in the state have come days after the government had launched the vaccination drive to inoculate the doses for the people in the age category of 18 to 44 years, the major populace of the state. 

The health minister has further said, "The Union government was supposed to provide over 1.75 lakh vaccines but they have not given us yet. They have said that they will give vaccines for the sum we have already paid along with the consignment they were supposed to deliver for this month. So, from June 6, possibly we will start distributing 42 lakh doses to the districts and restart the vaccination." 

On Monday, Subramanian said that Tamil Nadu was expected to receive 25 lakh vaccines from the Union government for vaccinating the 18-plus age group but received only 13 lakh cases. Districts like Thanjavur and Tiruvarur had run out of vaccines. He stated that in addition to 13 lakh doses, the state had earlier obtained 83 lakh doses from the Center, and about 87 lakh people have been vaccinated till Sunday. 

He added that there was a wastage during the vaccination drive in the first wave of the pandemic in the state. Subramanian has further asserted that the Union government was informed about the current situation and that fresh stocks were expected. According to the state health department, Tamil Nadu has reported 27,936 fresh COVID-19 cases, 31,223 discharges, and 478 deaths on Monday. Overall, the state has recorded 20,96,516 cases so far as of Monday of which 3,01,781 are active, 17,70,503 have been discharged, and 24,232 had succumbed to the viral infection.