The second mega vaccination camp held on Sunday covered 16,43,879 people in the State, marking the administration of one crore COVID-19 vaccine doses from the start of September till now. This took the coverage in government vaccination centres to over four crore.
With the State almost exhausting its stock of vaccines, there will be no inoculation on Monday, the Health Department said. The Department said regular vaccination would resume after supplies are received from the Union government.
Vaccination was carried out at 18,824 centres in primary health centres, government hospitals, anganwadi centres, noon meal centres, schools and important places.
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The camp aimed at vaccinating 15 lakh people. At the end of the day, 16,43,879 people were covered (10,85,097 got the first dose and 5,58,782 the second). The second camp exceeded its target with an additional 1,43,879 people getting vaccinated, a release said.
Among those vaccinated were 9,66,568 people in the 18-44 age group and 5,02,578 people aged 45 to 59. With this, the overall coverage in the 18-44 age group crossed two crore — 2,05,52,501.
It may be recalled that the first mega vaccination camp, held on September 12, ended with a coverage of nearly 28.91 lakh people.
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Health Minister Ma. Subramanian visited vaccination centres in six districts — Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Erode, Namakkal, Salem and Dharmapuri.
During the camp, Chennai crossed a coverage of two lakh and Karur one lakh — a record in itself, Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan said. As many as 2,01,805 people got jabs in Chennai and 1,00,036 in Karur.
“We had nearly 16.37 lakh doses in hand. Our goal was to exhaust the available doses,” he said, adding that they had reported to the Union government that the stock had been exhausted. “Our earliest supply is scheduled to arrive on September 22. But we hope we will get the supply on September 21,” he said.
He said the State had completed administering over one crore doses from the start of the month. Till September 19, 1,07,70,761 doses had been administered. The coverage in government centres crossed four crore — 4,13,23,002.
The Health Secretary complimented grass-root staff for the performance. On the availability of Covaxin, he said they were focusing online, listing those due for their second dose of Covaxin and those wanting Covaxin for medical reasons.