Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edapaddi K Palaniswami on Saturday inaugurated the Covid-19 vaccination drive in the State at Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai with Dr K Senthil, President of Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association being the first recipient. Deputy Chief Minister O Paneerselvam and senior cabinet ministers participated in the function.

Speaking to newspersons, Palaniswami said this was a ‘historic occasion’ and lauded the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in leading from the front in rolling out the vaccine. In the first phase the vaccination will be provided to doctors, healthcare staff and frontline workers. To begin with, the vaccine will be done at 166 sites for 100 persons per centre every day. A total of 5.36 lakh people will be covered in the State in the first phase.

The State has got 5.56 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines – 5.36 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine and 20,000 doses of Covaxin, he said.

At least 11 eminent doctors, including Apollo Hospitals chairman Dr Prathap C Reddy, were among the first to take the vaccine as part of the nation-wide drive set to start on Saturday.

Dr Vinay Kumar, Joint Director, Directorate of Public Health Care and Preventive Medicine, Chennai, on Friday said that the State is fully equipped for the vaccine rollout and has made all arrangements and facilities like the cold chains that involved the transportation and storage of the vaccines at 2-8 degree Celsius. Healthcare providers at various levels have been trained on the vaccination, he said while speaking at a Media Sensitisation Workshop on Covid-19 vaccine organised by the Press Information Bureau.

As on December 15, the total number of Coronavirus cases in the State stood at 8,29,573 with the daily addition of cases being in the declining trend in the last couple of months.

The death toll due to the virus was 12,251 and over 1.51 crore samples have been tested so far for the virus, according to the State health department.

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