Health teams in Tamil Nadu districts have been given detailed instructions to focus on increasing daily vaccinations along with local bodies by following a saturation approach after identifying list of persons yet to take first dose and those eligible for second dose.

Second dose pendency is increasing exponentially (now about 61 lakhs) as the first dose vaccination increased May onwards. Just getting them vaccinated will give short term results, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan told district collectors on Monday.

More than the absolute numbers per day achieved district wise, the real issue is the percentage in comparison with the population yet to be covered for first and second dose, for which Tamil Nadu is still below the national average due to slow uptake in the first four and a half months.

Already a new variant under investigation allegedly responsible for the recent rapid spread in UK has been identified in Indore and also reportedly in 1 per cent of cases in Maharashtra.

Considering the relaxations, strict follow up of SOPs and wearing mask arevery important.

The monsoon season has also boosted Dengue cases, especially in Avadi, Chennai, Kanchipuram, Salem and other places and if intensive mosquito breeding source reduction is done, it will lead to further increase and avoidable mortalities.

All in all, the next two months will be determine how the public health challenges get tackled.

After such effective work in disease control so far by the district teams, let us not give away the gains made, Health Secretary said.

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