Tamil Nadu inoculates 8.36 lakh people in 9th mega vaccination drive

Chennai: Tamil Nadu inoculated 8.36 lakh people against Covid-19 in the ninth edition of the mega vaccination drive on Thursday, the Health Department said.

Of the 8,36,796 people, 3,36,468 were administered with the first dose and 5,00,328 the second, a press release from the department said.

Vaccines were administered inover 50,000 places, including primary healthcare centres, government hospitals and anganwadis.

State Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian and department secretary J Radhakrishnan were monitoring the camp since it began at 7 AM with the Minister personally inspecting in some parts of the city.

The first edition was held on September 12. In its move to achieve 100 per cent vaccination in the State by this month-end, the Health Department recently decided to hold two mass vaccination exercises every week, hitherto a weekly exercise, targeting those eligible for the second dose.

According to Subramanian, about 75 lakh people were eligible for the second vaccination dose, of which 72 lakh were identified by the department. As of this morning, about 74 per cent of the total population received the first dose of which 36 per cent of them got both the doses, he said. "Currently, we have 1.31- crore vaccines in stock and based on the instructions from the Chief Minister (M K Stalin), it has been decided to hold two mega vaccination camps every week", he told reporters.

Today, the ninth edition was held. On November 21, the 10th would be conducted, he said while appealing to those yet to receive the first vaccination and those eligible to receive the second dose to make use of the camps.