Tamil Nadu: Mega-vaccination drive against Covid-19 today, over 1,000 camps set up in Chennai

Tamil Nadu health minister Ma Subramanian urged the Union government earlier this week to provide the state with an additional ten million doses of Covid-19 vaccines for the mega-vaccination drive planned on September 12.

The MK Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government in Tamil Nadu will organise a mega-vaccination drive against coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Sunday, with the aim to inoculate the remaining section of the vaccine-eligible population in the state who are yet to receive their respective jabs. The vaccination drive will be conducted on a weekly basis, Tamil Nadu health minister Ma Subramanian said earlier this week, putting in a request to the central government for additional Covid-19 vaccine doses.

Covid-19: The Greater Chennai Corporation said that it has set up over a thousand ‘special camps’ across the capital city for the vaccination drive, which includes one ‘static’ camp and two ‘mobile’ camps for each of the 200 wards in Chennai.  (Representational Image / REUTERS FILE)

The Greater Chennai Corporation said that it has set up more than 1,000 ‘special camps’ across the capital city for the vaccination drive, which includes one ‘static’ camp and two ‘mobile’ camps for each of the 200 wards in Chennai. “We will protect ourselves, our home, and our nation by vaccinating against Covid-19,” the Chennai corporation said in a tweet from its official handle on the microblogging website.

The Chennai municipal corporation has also released a special song — ‘Vaccine podu, makka’ or “Get vaccinated, brother” — to encourage more citizens to get themselves inoculated against the infectious disease at the nearest Covid-19 vaccination camp. The song is being played by corporation vehicles playing the city to generate awareness about the mega-vaccination drive.

Tamil Nadu health minister Ma Subramanian on Tuesday urged the Union government to provide the state with an additional 10 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines for the mega-vaccination drive planned on September 12. Pointing out that this inoculation campaign is the ‘next step’ in protecting the people from the coronavirus disease, Subramanian wrote a letter to Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya requesting the additional doses.

Tamil Nadu logged 1,639 fresh Covid-19 cases and 27 fatalities on Saturday, pushing the overall caseload to 26,32,231 and the death toll to 35,146. Recoveries were fewer than new infections, with 1,517 people getting discharged in the 24 hours prior, aggregating to 25,80,686 and leaving 16,399 active infections, a health department bulletin said.

With 224 new Covid-19 cases, Coimbatore topped the daily infection tally, followed by 170 cases in Chennai, 151 in Erode, 120 in Chengalpet, and 117 in Thanjavur.