Chennai, Sep 7 (IANS): Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian has written to Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya seeking 1 crore Covid vaccine doses in a single lot for the state to vaccinate 20 lakh people at 10,000 vaccination camps to be organised on September 12.

In the letter, Subramanian has requested the Union Health Minister to provide a special quota of 1 crore vaccine doses to inoculate all those above 18 years of age with at least the first shot of the vaccine.

He also requested Mandaviya to provide the same number of 0.5 ml Auto Disable (AD) syringes or 1 ml/2 ml syringes for the proposed mega vaccination camps to be held on September 12.

The minister said that these 1 crore vaccine doses are in addition to the 1.04 crore vaccine shots committed by the Central government to be used at the government-run Covid vaccination centres.

The Tamil Nadu Health Minister said that it has been decided to conduct the mega camps on a weekly basis starting September 12 to inoculate maximum number of people.

Subramanian said that the state has been administering 5 lakh doses of vaccine per day for the past seven days. At this rate, the current stock would last only for three to four days.

He said that 3.44 crore people are yet to be administered with the first dose, adding that 18.99 lakh people were eligible for the second dose as on September 5.

"During my meeting with the Union Health Minister on September 3, I had apprised him of the need for more vaccines due to the mega camps that we are planning. I also informed him of the necessity to vaccinate the eligible population in the districts bordering Kerala, where Covid cases are galloping. For this, we need extra vaccine shots as the eligible population in these nine districts is about 65.76 lakh," Subramanian told IANS.