Chennai: As part of the vaccine outreach programme, the state will take vaccinations to 4,848 health and wellness centres in rural areas and 500 health and wellness centres in urban areas, in addition to outreach sessions, the directorate of public health announced on Monday.
Immunisation sessions are held in medical college hospitals, govt hospitals, and PHCs in urban and rural areas every day. In addition, village health nurses take the vaccine to anganwadis or public places in villages and towns every Wednesday as part of outreach services. “Now, in addition to these places, vaccines will be available in wellness centres. The aim is to keep free, good quality vaccines accessible to people and reduce out-of-pocket expenditures such as travel costs to families,” said joint director of public health (immunisation) Dr K Vinaykumar. These vaccines will be stored in special boxes at a specified temperature. The residual vaccines will be returned to the cold chain in the nearest primary health centre or govt hospital, he said.
As part of the events held for National Vaccination Day, the directorate said the collective responsibility of people and the healthcare system is necessary to achieve immunisation coverage. Under the universal immunisation programme, 11 vaccines are provided to pregnant mothers and kids against 12 diseases. “Every year, 9.5 lakh pregnant women and 8.7 lakh children are covered under the programme,” said director of public health Dr T S Selvavinayagam. “The state has a consistent immunisation coverage of over 98% with an average coverage of 1.4 crore vaccine doses a year,” he said.