Chennai: Tamilnadu has joined the list of States that are gearing up to administer the Covid-19 vaccine.
It has been informed that a list of people who should be inoculated on priority is ready and 21,000 personnel were being trained and 46,000 centres identified in the State for the rollout of the immunisation exercise after the vaccine is made available.
The comprehensive list, including about five lakh health workers, all other frontline personnel like those from municipal administration, revenue and police, the elderly and those with co-morbidities is ready, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said.
Referring to a meeting with Secretary, Union Health Ministry via a virtual link on Wednesday, the top official said 21,000 personnel who could give vaccination shots have been identified and they were being trained.
Also, he said 46,000 centres for the purpose of vaccination has been identified and requisite infrastructure to handle the immunisation drive like cold chain facilities was ready, he said.
Tamilnadu alone has as many as 51 walk-in coolers and 2,800 secondary cold storage points ready, he said.
‘Vaccines are expected in January. The approval for vaccines should come from the Centre’.
Since Tamilnadu has more elderly population, it is expected that the State could be allocated more vaccines and such aspects were under discussion, he said.
The result of genomic analysis of a sample from a United Kingdom returnee, who tested Covid-19 positive here, could be expected next week, according to the National Institute of Virology and Tamilnadu has requested the research facility to expedite it, Radhakrishnan said.
The returnee from UK, who days ago tested positive, continues to be treated at the King’s Institute for Preventive Medicine and Research and he is stable and doing well, he further added.
The idea behind the test is to find out if the strain matched with the ones currently in circulation or whether it belonged to a different variant, like the one seen in the United Kingdom recently which is said to be more virulent.
As many as 2,724 passengers, who either arrived from the UK or transited via that country between 25 November and 23 December have been identified and were being monitored, he said, adding health, civic and police authorities were working in tandem in the tracing and monitoring exercise.