Chennai: Amid the spike in number of positive Covid-19 cases, which has crossed the 2,500 mark and inching closer to 1,000 in Chennai city, the Tamilnadu government has started administering covid vaccination for people above 45 years of age. Sources said it has been planned to vaccinate all above 45.
Sources said the Health department is planning to vaccinate at least 1.2 crore people.
Vaccinations are being administered in 6,588 centres in the State, including 1,950 mini clinics which were added to the vaccination programme.
Director of Public Health (DPH) T S Selvavinayagam said the vaccines would be moved from the district and regional vaccine stores to the mini clinics.
“We have stock for a week. We have eight lakh doses of Covishield and Covaxin, and the next batch is expected soon,” he said.
In a circular issued to all Deputy Directors of Health Services, the DPH said there were 529 government vaccination centres and 761 private vaccination centres.
Based on the recommendation of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19, the Centre decided to expand the prioritised age group to include all persons aged 45 years and above for vaccination from 1 April.
The need for a co-morbidity certificate for people aged 45 to 59 years was not required from now.
The Co-WIN software was also suitably modified to do away with the need for the condition of co-morbidities at the time of online registration and on-site registration or for uploading the co-morbidity certificate at the time of vaccination.
The first dose of vaccination drive began in January following which the second dose was administered in February.
