Chennai, Sept 26 (BPNS)
Tamil Nadu health department is planning to accelerate a campaign across the state for people to take the Covid -19 booster dose vaccine. The Tamil Nadu health minister, Ma Subramanian while speaking to IANS said, “ We have already directed the district medical officers and district health departments to conduct campaign so that maximum number of eligible people are taking the booster dose of vaccine.”
He said that till September 30th the booster doses are free and that it will be available at 11,333 facilities of the state medical health department. The state health minister said that the people must take up the booster dose within the next five days as it is not known whether the booster dose vaccines would be available freely after the cut-off date of September 30th.
It is to be noted that Tamil Nadu has vaccinated 96.55% of its population with the first dose of Covid -19 vaccine and 91.39% of people with the second dose of vaccine. Ma Subramanian said that these were made available due to the relentless effort of the health department officers including doctors, nurses, and other staff. The minister told IANS that people are still hesitant to take the booster dose of the vaccine and that there are still 3.40 crore people eligible for the vaccine.
The state on Sunday conducted the 38th mega vaccination drive in 50000 camps across the state and the minister said that Tamil Nadu was the only state that conducted such mega vaccination camps in the country. The mega vaccination camps in Tamil Nadu commenced on September 12, 2021.
The state health department, it is learned will conduct a door-to-door campaign using the services of Primary health centres which are situated across the state. The services of Anganwadi teachers and SC/ST promoters will also be used to reach out to maximum number of people for the booster dose of vaccine.
