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The Centre on Monday informed the Madras High Court that it planned to make available 216 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the year-end so that every Indian could be fully vaccinated.
Additional Solicitor-General R. Sankaranarayanan made the submission at the hearing of a suo motu public interest litigation petition taken up by the court to monitor the fight against the pandemic.
However, Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy observed that the future vaccine allocation to Tamil Nadu appeared to be somewhat skewed and disappointing since it was not in consonance with the number of cases being reported in the State every day. They observed that the allocation “may be revisited” by the Centre with due weightage given to objective factors.
In a counter-affidavit, P. Satyendra Singh, Under-Secretary, Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, stated that 88.5 lakh doses had been made available to Tamil Nadu, apart from 4.57 lakh doses to Puducherry, as on May 21. While Tamil Nadu had used 76.28 lakh doses, the usage in Puducherry was 2.4 lakh. Both were now left with 12.27 lakh and 2.16 lakh doses respectively.
The present vaccine wastage in Tamil Nadu was 4.1% and 0.2% in Puducherry. The Centre planned to allocate 6.55 lakh doses to Tamil Nadu and 25,010 doses to Puducherry free of cost between June 1 and June 15.
Apart from this, Tamil Nadu had been permitted to purchase 11.52 lakh doses and Puducherry 33,390 doses directly from the manufacturers in June.
The officer said that for the “first time in history”, India was conducting the biggest vaccination drive “for which the country does not have the luxury of a detailed planning time like other vaccines administered in the past over a period of decades… Earlier, there was no requirement of an emergency vaccination drive like the sudden emerging situation since 2019”.
Stating that the prioritisation was based on age and vulnerability, the official said the “population above 45 years of age has more risk of severe outcomes and deaths. It accounts for more than 85% of the COVID-19 mortality rate in the country. From May 1, vaccine manufacturers had been permitted to sell 50% of their production directly to the State governments and private hospitals to vaccinate the 18-44 age group.”
‘Based on population’
Nevertheless, the Centre had been determining the allocation to every State on the basis of population in that age group on a pro rata basis. “This exercise is absolutely essential, and this discipline is mandatory so as to have uniform vaccination throughout the country. This historical endeavour can be successful only by treating India as one unit and considering the question on a pan-India basis,” the counter-affidavit read.
The Ministry also stated that efforts were on to procure vaccines from other countries, and 1.5 lakh doses of the Russian-made Sputnik-V had already been received. While the Sputnik-V production was expected to increase from 30 lakh doses to 1.2 crore a month by July, the domestic manufacturer, Serum Institute of India, had ramped up production from 5 crore doses a month to 6 crore doses, and a further increase was expected by July.
Similarly, Bharat Biotech had increased its production from 90 lakh doses a month to 2 crore, and planned to increase it up to 5.5 crore doses by July.
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