Low response for mega vaccination drive in TN

CHENNAI: The 37th mega vaccination drive was organised at 50,000 locations across the State on Sunday. Health Minister Ma Subramanian inspected the mega vaccination drive in T Nagar.

The mega vaccination drive saw a low response despite numerous awareness drive by the health department to promote the vaccination against COVID-19. The numbers of COVID-19 are seeing a slight surge in the cases in few districts for the past few days, especially after Chennai again crossed the 100 mark and numbers are increasing.

A total of 3.59 lakh doses of vaccines were administered at the 37th mega vaccination drive until 1 pm. Of this, at least 2.65 lakh precautionary booster doses of vaccines were administered in the State.

In Tamil Nadu, as many as 96 percent of people above the age of 18 have been vaccinated with the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines and 91.10 percent have received both the doses. So far, 5.34 crore doses of vaccines have been administered at the 36 mega vaccination camps.

The precautionary booster dose vaccination remains low as only about 19 percent of the target beneficiaries have been vaccinated in the State. The state health department is undertaking mega vaccination drive to promote the free precautionary booster dose administration across the State. However, the response remains low, even as the available vaccine doses provided to the States remain unutilised.

"There is only one mega vaccination drive left before September 30th and we urge unvaccinated people to get vaccinated at 25th September mega vaccination drive, which would likely be the last mega vaccination drive," health minister said.

All the government hospitals in Tamil Nadu will display advertisements on the essential vaccinations for various age groups. "Every Wednesday, the government hospitals will vaccinate all pregnant women and children upto the age of 16 years for various diseases as per Immunisation schedule. All the government schools will administer vaccines to the students on every Thursday," he added.