CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin launched a free Covid-19 vaccine drive in private hospitals under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds at the Kauvery Hospital on Wednesday. The free vaccine drive through CSR funds will be jointly conducted by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and private hospitals. After the launch, Dr S Chandrakumar, Chairman, CII, Tamil Nadu State Council, handed over a cheque for Rs 2.20 crore under CSR funds to the Chief Minister. KT Srinivasa Raja, Managing Director, Adyar Ananda Bhavan, also handed over a `7 lakh cheque to the CM.
According to a press release, the State, till date, has vaccinated 2.15 crore people in private and government institutions. Speaking to the reporters recently, Health Minister Ma Subramanian had said that the State had received `5 crore CSR funds so far. The details of how many vaccines will be provided under CSR funds in a particular hospital will be announced to the public by the hospitals.
This will be monitored by the local administration and the Health Department officials. Many private companies that want to get their employees vaccinated can use the 25 per cent vaccine allotment quota by the Central Government to the private hospitals.
The Union government allotted 75 per cent vaccines quota to the State government and 25 percent to the private hospitals; but, still many private hospitals don’t utilise their allocation fully. So, the State government decided to make use of it and decided to purchase those vaccines through CSR funds and vaccinate the people to achieve more vaccination coverage in Tamil Nadu. The health department held a meeting with the private companies and private hospitals and launched the programme after discussing the plan with them.
Meanwhile, the State received 7,97,080 vaccines on Wednesday, among them were: Covaxin - 2,15,810 doses and Covishield - 5,81,270. Health Minister Ma Subramanian, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, Chennai Corporation Commissioner Gagandeep Bedi Singh, Dr Aravindan Selvaraj, Co-founder and Executive Director, Kauvery Hospital, and other higher officials were also present at the event.