TN Health Secretary inaugurates sixth mega state vaccination campaign in Chennai
Oct 23, 2021
Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], October 23 : Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan inaugurated the sixth mega COVID-19 vaccination campaign to be held throughout the state on Saturday in Chennai.
This mega vaccination campaign will be conducted besides the daily vaccine and looks forward to providing vaccines to those who could not get vaccinated during the weekdays.
He addressed the media on this occasion. Later while speaking to ANI, he said, "We have set up 50,000 mega camps in addition to our daily camps. There are a lot of people who are not able to get vaccinated on the weekdays so we are trying to make up for that through this campaign and give them a chance to come here and get vaccinated. We urge everyone to get vaccinated, especially older people."
Radhakrishnan emphasised on the importance of older people receiving their vaccinations, saying that they are more vulnerable to getting infected from younger people during the times when COVID-19 related restrictions are at their lowest.
"Older people are even more vulnerable, on top of that, there is high mortality among older people and they also have comorbidities," he added.
He said that a key focus of this campaign will be vaccinating people who are yet to receive their first dose or are due to receive their second dose now.
As per Radhakrishnan, 1.8 crore people are yet to get their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The campaign aims to push the figure of people who have received their first dose of vaccine to 70 per cent.
"3.92 crore vaccinated people or 68 per cent of the population has been given the first dose of vaccination. We hope that the percentage of people having received their first dose reaches 70 per cent via this campaign. Also, 26 per cent have fully vaccinated in the state and we are looking forward to pushing this figure to 30 per cent soon," he said.
Radhakrishnan also assured that there is enough vaccine stock to carry out vaccination for few more days.
"We have enough vaccine stock for 15-20 days and the Centre is also helping us with the vaccines," he added.
