Chennai: Corporation plans to give 1 lakh Covid jabs on Thursday

CHENNAI: One lakh city residents will be vaccinated on Thursday at nearly 400 locations including all UPHCs, Amma Clinics and corporation buildings.
Greater Chennai Corporation has already sought vaccines from the state public health department for the massive drive and will deploy its complete health staff to execute it.
The 45 permanent vaccination centres in corporation schools are set to be closed in a few days and the civic body plans to set up at least one centre in each of the 200 divisions. “Urban primary health centres and Amma Clinics will be identified and vaccination centres be set up there.
We had reduced the number of such centres mainly because of the shortage in vaccine supply. There were three centres per zone, earlier. With vaccine supply having improved, and schools and colleges opening, we want to increase the number of vaccination centres,” said Vishu Mahajan, deputy commissioner, revenue and finance, in charge of vaccination drives.
So far, the civic body has vaccinated 36.8 lakh people, 25.7 lakh having received one dose and 11 lakh both doses. The corporation held focused drives at 38 market locations that were scaled down to 27 last week. It even held camps at malls and shopping complexes and began a special drive where daily at least 45 slums were identified and residents vaccinated.
“Once schools and colleges open, we plan to conduct special drives there. We would select three schools and colleges in each zone every day and vaccinate them. It will be done on a rotational basis to cover all staff and the college students who are expected to return from their native places,” said Mahajan.
On the first day of the special drive to vaccinate those above 80 years at their door step, 500 people were given the jabs. Of this, about 463 got their first dose and 37 got the second dose. “We have already got another 160 calls for the next day.
We will continue this drive until we vaccinate all senior citizens above 80,” said an official. The numbers to avail door step vaccination for senior citizens is - 044-2538 4520/044-4612 2300. In this category, of the 1.65 lakh individuals eligible, 90,153 have been vaccinated so far.