Tamil Nadu gets 556,500 doses of vaccines for administration at 307 sites

District-wise cold chain points are ready. A total of 45 vehicles will transport vaccines to health unit districts

Tamil Nadu has been allotted 556,500 doses of Covid-19 vaccines of which 536,500 are Covishield and 20,000 are Covaxin. The state received the first supply of vaccines on Tuesday.

The vaccines, which arrived at Chennai airport from Pune on Tuesday morning, will be stored in the first phase at the State Vaccine Store on the premises of the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services (DMS).

A GoAir flight carrying 59 boxes, each containing 1,200 Covishield vials landed at Chennai airport. 

The vials will be distributed across the State through Chennai, Cuddalore, Tiruchirapalli, Thanjavur, Madurai, Sivaganga, Tirunelveli, Vellore, Salem and Coimbatore districts.

A joint director of the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine was appointed to carry out work to transport the vaccines from the airport. From the DMS campus, the vials would be transported to 10 storage facilities from where they would be dispatched to the districts. The district-wise cold chain points are ready. A total of 45 vehicles were ready to transport the vaccines to the health unit districts, according to officials from the State Government.

 

Work to dispatch the vaccines to districts would begin later in the evening. The Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said 2,000 vaccine centres were ready in the State. The jabs would be administered in two doses. As per Central government guidelines, healthcare workers and frontline workers would first receive the vaccine.

Vaccines to be administered at 307 locations: Health Minister

Health Minister C Vijayabaskar said on Tuesday that necessary steps have been taken to administer Covid-19 vaccine at 307 locations across the State on January 16 in the first phase.

Some 600,000 frontline warriors have been identified and pre-registered as per Central government guidelines for administration of the vaccine, Vijayabaskar told reporters at Viralimalai in the district.

Comprehensive measures have been taken to administer the doses as per the Centre's guidelines, the Minister said, adding that Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami would inaugurate the vaccination process. The Rajaji Government Hospital at Madurai is gearing up for the inauguration on January 16.