Chennai,  The Tamil Nadu health department is planning to accelerate a campaign across the state for people to take the Covid-19 booster dose vaccine.

The Tamil Nadu health minister, Ma Subramanian while speaking to IANS said, "We have already directed the district medical officers and district health departments to conduct campaigns so that a maximum number of eligible people are taking the booster dose of vaccine."

He said that till September 30 the booster doses are free and that it will be available at 11,333 facilities of the state medical health department. The minister said that the people must take up the booster dose within the next five days as it is not known whether the booster dose vaccines would be available freely after the cut-off date of September 30.

Tamil Nadu has vaccinated 96.55 per cent of its population with the first dose of Covid vaccine and 91.39 per cent of the people with the second dose of vaccine. Ma Subramanian said that these were made available due to the relentless efforts of the health department officers, including doctors, nurses, and other staff. The minister told IANS that people were still hesitant to take the booster dose and that there were still 3.40 crore people eligible for the vaccine.

The state on Sunday conducted the 38th mega vaccination drive in 50,000 camps across the state and the minister said that Tamil Nadu was the only state that conducted such mega vaccination camps in the country. The mega vaccination camps in the state commenced on September 12, 2021.

The state health department, it is learned, will conduct a door-to-door campaign using the services of primary health centres, which are situated across the state. The services of Anganwadi teachers and SC/ST promoters will also be used to reach out to yje maximum number of people for the booster dose of vaccine.