As many as 28,36,776 people were vaccinated in Tamil Nadu on Sunday as thousands thronged government centres to get the jab as part of mega vaccination camps organised across the State. The State government had set a target of vaccinating 20 lakh people during the day, but crossed it by 4.30 pm. The previous highest was achieved on August 31, when the State administered vaccines to 5,75,648 persons.
Around 40,000 camps, including 1,600 in Chennai, were set up across the State with the vaccine administered between 7 am and 7 pm. Anticipating a higher turnout, the State government had distributed over 27 lakh doses of vaccines to various districts by Saturday night.
Seeing the success of this vaccination camp held on Sunday, the government plans to conduct such large vaccination camps once a week and develop the immunity of a large number of people by the end of October, Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu told newspersons. Last week, the State government had sought 1 crore Covid vaccines from the Centre for the mega vaccination camps.
As on Saturday, the eligible population above 18 years for two doses was 6.06 crore. The State had covered the first dose of 2.63 crore beneficiaries and 68.91 lakh beneficiaries vaccinated with both doses. The remaining eligible population above 18 years who need to be vaccinated with the first dose is 3.44 crore and the persons due for the second dose is about 19 lakh.
Eligible population
The mega camp also assumes significance with the higher number of cases reported in the neighbouring State of Kerala. Subramanian said that the mega camp focussed on to ensure 100 per cent vaccination for all the left out unvaccinated eligible population on priority basis in all the nine bordering districts of Kerala – Coimbatore, Dindigul, Kanyakumari, Tenkasi, the Nilgiris, Theni, Tirunelveli, Tiruppur and Virudhunagar.
It is estimated that 65.76 lakh population in the nine districts have to be given the first dose of vaccine. Tamil Nadu had been vaccinating about 5 lakh doses per day from September 1-6, but the number declined between 1.32- 3.4 lakhs in the last four days, according to State Health Department data.
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