Booster dose camps to be held every Thursday, says Health Minister

The State Health Department will be organising special vaccination camps every Thursday for the administration of booster dose to those eligible. Officials had earlier pointed out that the administration is going on a slow pace in the State as many eligible people do not turn up at the vaccination sites on their own.

After the launch in Tamil Nadu on 10th January for health workers, frontline workers and senior citizens over 60 years of age with co-morbidities. So far, a total of 92,522 persons have been vaccinated with a precautionary booster dose in Tamil Nadu, including 32,355 health workers, 25,300 frontline workers and 34,867 persons over 60 years of age with co-morbidities.

Health Minister Ma Subramanian inspected the door-to-door booster dose vaccination in Saidapet and said that as 10 lakh people in Tamil Nadu will be eligible to be vaccinated by the end of January, special vaccination camps are aimed at vaccinating more people with the precautionary booster dose.

In Tamil Nadu, 4,48,232 persons are eligible for the precautionary booster vaccination right, after 9 months, which is 39 weeks after two doses of vaccination, which is until 16th April. Health Minister Ma Subramanian earlier stated that it was challenging to bring eligible people to the vaccination centres for the booster dose vaccination and the coverage is low. He announced that Greater Chennai Corporation healthcare workers will go door to door and vaccinate the elderly over 60 years of age with co-morbidities.

"The elderly with comorbidities have been found to constitute a larger percentage of people who succumbed to Covid. Thus, these people must be protected the most. The percentage of unvaccinated is also more among those who died and were hospitalised after being affected with Covid. Thus, we are reaching door-to-door to vaccinate them and people should also encourage the same," said Dr P Sampath, joint Director, Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.