CHENNAI: Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Tuesday wrote to Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya requesting for one crore Covid-19 vaccines to be given to Tamil Nadu in addition to already-committed 1.04 crore doses, as the State intends to conduct mega vaccination camps every week from September 12.
Subramanian also requested for an equal number of 0.5 ml of auto-disable (AD) syringes or 1 ml/2 ml syringes.
The minister said TN has about 6.06 crore people who are eligible to get vaccinated, and till September 5, a total of 2.63 crore received the first dose, and 68.91 lakh got both doses at government Covid vaccination centres.
As many as 3.44 crore people haven’t yet received even one dose, and 18.89 lakh are yet to receive the second dose, the minister pointed out.
“For the last seven days, the State has been administering about 5 lakh doses per day. Considering the current pace of vaccination, the current supplies are adequate for only three-to-four days, making it difficult to plan to cover the eligible left-out population,” Subramanian stated.
The Union government, till September 5, supplied 3,31,84,824 doses of vaccines, and 1,83,95,400 (0.5 ml) AD syringes to the State, the minister added.
He also said an estimated 65.76 lakh people in the nine districts bordering Kerala are yet to get the first dose of the vaccine, and highlighted that Kerala has a high number of Covid cases.