Chennai, Oct 5 (BPNS)
Tamil Nadu health minister Ma Subramanian has said that the fifth mega vaccination drive against Covid -19 will be held on October 10. The minister was speaking to reporters here on Tuesday.
He said that the mega vaccination camps across the state have been a major success and that in the first three camps, high participation had earmarked the camps. The state is expected to vaccinate 15 lakh people in the fifth mega vaccine camp.
In the first mega vaccine drive held on September 12, the target was 20 lakhs but 28.91 lakh people were inoculated in the state. The state government had 40,000 centres for administering the jab and this led to 10% of people of the state getting vaccinated.
In the second mega vaccine drive on September 19, the targeted population was 15 lakhs but the state vaccinated 16,43,879 eligible population in the drive. The state health department was relentlessly pursuing the central government to availing more vaccine doses to inoculate the population. Chief Minister, M.K.Stalin wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to sanction 50 lakhs vaccines per week and added that the state has the capacity to inoculate 6 lakh people a day.
The third mega vaccination drive was held on September 26 and the state inoculated 24.85 lakh, people, against the projected 15 lakh eligible population in the vaccine drive. Of these 14.90 lakh got the first shot while 9.95 lakh were administered the second dose of the vaccine during the third mega vaccine drive.
In the fourth mega vaccine drive held on October 3, Sunday the state administered vaccines to 17.19 lakh doses of vaccines in 24882 camps across the state.
The state is expected to vaccinate 15 lakh people during the fifth mega vaccine drive on October 10th but the health department is prepared for more inoculations as it has been witnessing heavy turnout during the mega vaccine camps.
The state, according to health department officials is to receive 1.23 crore doses of vaccines as the October allocation. The state is expected to completely vaccinate the total population with at least one dose by the end of 2021.
State health minister, Ma Subramanian while speaking to BPNS said, “The state has administered vaccines according to the plan we have chalked out and we are getting a regular supply of vaccines from the centre following the Chief Minister directly writing a letter to the Prime Minister regarding the state’s requirements.”
