Chennai, Oct 14 (IANS): The Tamil Nadu health department would not be carrying out the sixth mega vaccination drive on October 17, Sunday due to the Ayudha Pooja holidays. The state has been conducting mega vaccine drives since September 12 and a huge turnout of people had made the drive a big success.

State health minister Ma Subramanian while speaking to IANS said, "We will not be holding the mega vaccination drive on October 17 due to the pooja holidays. We have 35 lakh doses of vaccines as of Wednesday and the vaccine drive will resume next week. The state has done reasonably well in inoculating its population and has now overcome the lethargy in the initial days."

The health minister also said that Coimbatore district has topped the vaccination against Covid-19 in the state with the district inoculating 93 per cent of its population with the first dose of the vaccine and 37 per cent with the second dose.

The average of Tamil Nadu is 24 per cent.

The Tamil Nadu health minister also said that the state has vaccinated 4.5 lakh pregnant women and this would be the top number in the country.

He also said that 386 dengue cases were reported in the state after testing 86,000 samples across the state. The minister said that a list was being prepared on Covid-19 health care workers and that they would be provided incentives as soon as the list is ready and money would be released to them.

The state government is also planning more awareness programmes on Covid-19 vaccine as the state health department has reported that there was still vaccine hesitancy among the people in the state. The state is roping in actors and cricketers and produce short videos and upload on social media sites as well as on popular TV networks to create awareness on vaccination.