Vaccination of 18-44 age group set to begin from Thursday

Other vaccines approved by Centre will also be procured for Tamil Nadu, says Health Minister

More than two weeks after the Centre announced the third phase of the inoculation drive for those aged 18-44, the State government on Tuesday announced launch of the drive in government vaccination sites from Thursday.

Tamil Nadu received 9.62 lakh doses, recently including 7.95 lakh doses of Covishield and 1.66 lakh doses of Covaxin after issuing an order for 13.85 lakh doses. For those aged 45 and above, vaccines procured from the Central government will be administered.

The pending 4.23 lakh doses, including 3.23 Covishield and 1 lakh Covaxin are to be received soon, an official said. Besides, the Centre is to supply about 5.89 lakh doses of vaccines for the age group of 45 years and above before the end of the month.

Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Tuesday said that apart from Covishield and Covaxin, Sputnik V can also be administered in the State. “If there are approvals for any other vaccines from the Centre, they can also be procured in Tamil Nadu. Global tenders have already been placed for the several crore doses,” he said.

He added that so far, close to 70 lakh people have received at least the first dose of the vaccine and the risk of COVID-19 will be reduced significantly when that number reaches five crore.

With 50,091 more getting inoculated on Tuesday, a total of 70,13,735 shots have been administered in the State so far. At least 5.5 percent of the Tamil Nadu population is expected to have been vaccinated with the first dose while 0.9 percent have received both doses.