Tamil Nadu will be holding its third mega vaccination camp on Sunday, September 26, with a target of inoculating at least 15 lakh people, state Health Minister Ma Subramanian announced on Thursday, September 23. Buoyed by the success of the mega vaccination camps held on September 12 and September 19, the state Health Department is going ahead with the third edition of the mega vaccination camp, he said. The Health Department said that while the target for the first mega vaccination camp was to inoculate 20 lakh people, a total of 21.98 lakh people were vaccinated in 40,000 centres across the state.
For the second mega vaccination camp, the state set a target of 15 lakh people but the total turned out to be 16.43 lakh people, and the government is expecting more people in the third edition, the minister said. Chief Minister MK Stalin has already written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking allocation of 50 lakh vaccines a week for the state to conduct these mega vaccination camps.
In his letter, he said that the state would complete a minimum of one dose of vaccine to its entire population if the Union government allocates 50 lakh doses every week. Talking to IANS, Subramanian said, “We will be vaccinating a minimum of 15 lakh people across the state through the third mega vaccination camp. As I have said earlier, the state has the infrastructure to vaccinate 6 lakh people a day.”
“The mega vaccination camps are helping the Health Department to reach its target much earlier and we are expecting the Union government to provide us 50 lakh doses of vaccine a week so that we complete the inoculation of the entire population with a minimum of a single dose of the vaccine by October end,” Subramanian added.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu on Thursday, September 23 reported 1,745 new cases and 27 deaths. Active cases in the state are at 17,121. Coimbatore district recorded the highest number of new cases at 226, followed by Chennai at 222, Erode at 116 and Chengalpattu with 107 new cases on Thursday.