Over 18.08 lakh people vaccinated during mega vaccination drive

CHENNAI: The 32nd mega vaccination drive was organised in the State on Sunday, with more than 18.08 lakh doses of vaccines being administered. As many as 1.41 lakh first doses of vaccines, 5.49 lakh second dose and 11.17 lakh precautionary booster doses were administered.

Health Minister Ma Subramanian inspected the mega vaccination drive at the urban primary health centre in Teynampet. He said that the free precautionary booster dose has helped in increasing the number of beneficiaries for the booster dose. He also urged more people to make use of the 75 days free booster dose vaccination.

As many as 31.78 lakh people have not received first doses and 95.46 lakh second doses are yet to be administered. About 3.54 crore people in Tamil Nadu are yet to receive the COVID-19 precautionary dose even after completing the six-months from the time of second dose.

The mega vaccination camps are being organised at one lakh locations and will be observed every alternative week in the State, health minister had earlier announced. As many as 4.61 crore beneficiaries have benefitted from 31 mega COVID-19 vaccination camps held so far. At least 95.59 percent people have been vaccinated with first dose and 88.51 percent people have been administered with the second dose across Tamil Nadu.

Talking about the cases of Monkeypox in Kerala, Telangana and Delhi and the infection being declared an emergency by WHO, health minister said that we have separate wards ready for treatment of these cases in the State.

"The screening of international passengers is being done and state health department officials also inspected the screening procedures at all the airports. All the 13 bordering areas of Tamil Nadu with Kerala are being monitored and the monitoring of children especially by fever screening, saturation test, checking for any skin problems and RT-PCR is being done, " health minister said.