Chennai to hold mass vaccination drive on August 26

Amid fears of a third wave, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) will on Thursday organize a special Covid-19 vaccination drive at 400 centres across the city. The GCC has set up two centres each in 200 wards of the city and has deployed additional personnel to achieve its target of vaccinating 1 lakh persons on Thursday.

This is the first time that the civic body is organising a special drive at this scale. The move also comes close on the heels of the GCC launching a drive to administer Covid-19 vaccines to those above 80 years of age at their residence.

“We have arranged for 400 vaccination centres across the city at community centres, and other places. We plan to achieve our target of giving jabs to 1 lakh people on Thursday. Based on the response, we will arrange another such drive-by requesting additional supplies from the Health Department,” Dr Manish S Narnaware, Deputy Commissioner (Health), Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), told DH.

Chennai currently has around 50 vaccination centres and the special drive was planned to give further impetus to the vaccination drive, officials said. “We have been administering around 25,000 doses in Chennai in a day and we are taking all steps to increase the coverage. Thursday’s special drive is just one step towards increasing the coverage. More such steps will be taken in the coming weeks,” a senior official said.

The city has so far administered 36.80 lakh vaccine doses of which 25.72 persons have received their first dose and 11.07 lakh have got both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. And the GCC in association with the Rotary organization has also administered over 2,700 doses in three days to those above 80 years of age.

Chennai is also the first city in the state to take vaccination to the doorsteps of differently-abled people.

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