TN govt concerned over low Covid vaccine rates in districts

Chennai, June 11 (IANS) Tamil Nadu health department has sent missives to collectors of eight districts of the state asking them to increase the vaccination rate and to coordinate with the health officials for the same.

Apparently, vaccination rate has been low in Chennai, Chengalpattu, Ranipet, Tiruppatur, Tiruppur, Madurai, Myladuthurai, and Theni.

With a mega vaccination drive on June 12, the health department is planning to make up for the low rate of vaccination in certain districts as Covid -19 cases have shown a comeback across the country.

As many as 1 lakh vaccination centres across the state will inoculate people as part of the drive.

Tamil Nadu has identified Omicron variant of the Covid virus in the recent Covid cases and the whole genome sequencing of the samples has shown that BA 4 and BA 5 sub-variants of Omicron were in circulation among Covid patients in the state.

Notably, Tamil Nadu has administered 11.18 crore doses of vaccine to date with 93.87 per cent of people above the age of 18 receiving the first dose of the vaccine. Around 83.06 per cent of the people have received the second dose of the vaccine. The second dose coverage is low among those aged above 18 in the districts of Ranipet, Tirupattur, Madurai, Namakkal, and Theni, health department officials said.

The state health department has found that to date 43 lakh persons in Tamil Nadu are yet to take the first dose of the vaccine and 1.21 crore people are to take the second dose.

The health department is worried that the new sub-variant of BA 4 and BA 5 will spread through those who have not taken the vaccines and the state health department has urged people to complete their vaccination in the mega camp to be held on Sunday.

State health minister Ma Subramanian told IANS: "People must take the jab in this mega vaccine camp as there is a slight increase in Covid -19 cases across the country and Tamil Nadu is not an exception. Everyone should make use of the opportunity of the mega vaccine camp on June 12th, Sunday as we have arranged vaccination in 1 lakh centres. This is a good opportunity and those who have failed to take the first and second doses of the vaccine must complete this we have directed all the district collectors, district health officials, and the district superintendents of police to monitor the vaccination and make sure that maximum number of people are inoculated."