Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian has written to Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya seeking one crore vaccine doses for the state to vaccinate 20 lakh people at mega vaccination camps to be conducted on September 12. In the letter, Subramanian has requested the Union Health Minister to provide a special quota of 1 crore vaccine doses to inoculate all those above 18 years of age with at least the first shot of the vaccine. He also requested Mandaviya to provide the same number of 0.5 ml Auto Disable (AD) syringes or 1 ml/2 ml syringes for the proposed mega vaccination camps to be held on September 12.

The minister has stated that the one crore vaccine doses are in addition to the 1.04 crore shots already set aside by the Union government for administration at government-run vaccination centres. According to Ma Subramanian, the state government has decided to conduct mega vaccination camps on a weekly basis starting September 12 to inoculate the maximum number of people.

Subramanian said that the state has been administering five lakh doses of vaccines per day for the past seven days. At this rate, the current stock would last only for three to four days. He also said that 3.44 crore people were yet to be administered with the first dose, adding that 18.99 lakh people were eligible for the second dose as on September 5.

“During my meeting with the Union Health Minister on September 3, I had apprised him of the need for more vaccines due to the mega camps that we are planning. I also informed him of the necessity to vaccinate the eligible population in the districts bordering Kerala, where COVID-19 cases are galloping. For this, we need extra vaccine shots as the eligible population in these nine districts is about 65.76 lakh,” the minister said.

With IANS inputs