Chennai, Aug 31 (IANS): Government hospitals and the Urban Primary Health Centres in Tamil Nadu have been found to be far ahead of private hospitals in the number of daily vaccinations of people.

According to a report of the Public Health Department, Tamil Nadu government hospitals, PHC's and door to door vaccination together make up around 2.7 lakh doses of vaccines a day. However, in private hospitals, the vaccination count is around 21,000. This shows that the vaccinations against Covid -19 in government hospitals are more than ten times that in private hospitals.

Tamil Nadu health minister Ma Subramanian told IANS, "The number of vaccinations in government hospitals, and PHC's touch around 2.7 lakh doses on an average per day while it is around 21000 in private hospitals. The vaccines in government centres are free of cost and are hassle-free and hence public is preferring government centres."

The Tamil Nadu health department has been repeatedly requesting the Central government to reduce the supply of vaccines to the private sector and increase the supply to the government sector.

However Tamil Nadu is lagging behind some states in the number of vaccinations per day. According to Public Health Department officials the state would have to touch an average of 7 lakh vaccines a day for the whole state to be inoculated with at least one dose of vaccine by December 2021.

Ma Subramanian have already requested the Central government to provide 1 crore vaccine doses in a single allotment. This, according to Public Health Department officials, would help the state to catch up with the other states and to achieve the target of inoculating its population with at least one dose of vaccine by December 2021.