Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Health Department has constituted medical teams to visit villages in the state to inoculate people who have not taken a jab against Covid-19.
A team comprising a doctor, nurse, and other staff will commence visiting villages from Tuesday onwards.
The district medical officers will monitor the team that will be travelling to the villages.
The state Health Department, in a statement on Tuesday, said that there are 80,000 villages in the state and each would be covered.
The Health Department, in its study, found that after opening of offices and factories, number of vaccinations slowed down on weekdays.
Kavitha Balamurugan, a doctor with a medical team from Chengalpattu, told IANS: “I am part of the medical team that will be touring villages in Chengalpattu district and I feel that this novel initiative will lead to vaccinating almost the whole of the population. I am eagerly looking forward to traveling to villages for inoculation.”
The Health Department will associate with the state Education Department and will depute students to create awareness among their parents regarding the necessity of vaccination against Covid-19.
According to a study conducted by the state Health Department, in certain pockets of Tamil Nadu, lethargy has crept in regarding vaccination and the new initiative is to rope in almost everyone to be vaccinated against Covid -19.
State Health Minister Ma Subramanian told IANS: “This is a new initiative of the state Health Department and our team will cover all the 80,000 villages of Tamil Nadu to inoculate people who are left out of the vaccine drive.”
“We do not want any lethargy in this and the state government is monitoring the situation closely. The efforts of the doctors, nurses, and other staff of the Health Department in bringing the Covid-19 fresh cases under 1,000 are laudable and we do not want to lose this advantage by slowing down the vaccine drive,” the HealtH Minister said.
