High Court asks Centre to augment O2, vaccine, drugs supply to TN and Pondy

Advocate General R Shunmugasundaram informed the court that the State has received only 5 lakh vaccine doses out of 13.85 lakh doses ordered for inoculating those between 18 and 45 years. Pointing out that vaccination for persons in category could not be taken up in Tamil Nadu because of shortage of doses, the first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy said the situation was slightly better in Puducherry, which has a stock of about 2 lakh doses out of around 4 lakh doses that were allocated and supplied. 

“Similarly, Remdesivir appears to be in short supply in both the State and the Union Territory while the latter has a little over 700 vials left for distribution,” the Chief Justice held. When an appeal was made for direct supply to private hospitals, the Chief Justice said, “This is one area that should be looked into by the State with immediate effect, as all patients may not have available representatives to stand in queue at government outlets to obtain the medicine. 

“In any event, verification of the requirement together with proper certification may be better done at a government to private hospital basis with a degree of accountability if it is ultimately found that the private hospital may have tinkered with the details or eligibility criteria,” the Chief Justice added.