Next focus on pilgrimage sites, says Min

So far, special drives were held for differently-abled, transpersons, pregnant women, lactating mothers and staff and traders working in commercial establishments, he added while inaugurating a camp at St Francis Xavier School in Adyar on Sunday.

“The next step is to focus on vaccinating all individuals at spiritual sites and pilgrim centres. People in Tiruvannamalai, Rameswaram, Nagore, Velankanni and Chinnamalai will be vaccinated soon,” he said. By taking special steps to provide proper training and guidance to doctors and nurses on handling vaccines, the State has saved about seven lakh doses in the last two months. One vial has 5.8 ml to 6 ml, which can be used for 10 persons at 0.5 ml each. “We are able to use it for 11-12 persons,” he said.

The State has so far received 1,80,31,670 vaccine doses, and inoculated 1,79,21,518 persons. Now, 4,76,883 doses are in stock. remaining were lost as wastage in the intial days. Denying allegations of lack of transparency, he said opposition leaders claimed 30 lakh doses were issued to Tamil Nadu while the actual number was only 3 lakh.

Talking about COVID-19 in children, Subramanian said 43 children were infected in Kancheepuram. After being admitted to Kancheepuram District Government Hospital and Children’s Hospital in Egmore for treatment, they have recovered and returned home, he said. He added that tests revealed that none of them carried Delta Plus variant.

Inaugurating pneumococcal vaccination, he said children aged below five were covered under the National Immunisation Programme that was implemented in 21 states for the last two years. But the previous regime took no steps to vaccinate children here from pneumococcal diseases such as pneumonia and meningitis. Only private hospitals have the facility to administer pneumococcal vaccines, and each child requires three doses.