More than 900 Haj pilgrims were vaccinated at free of cost at special camps organised in Vellore, Ranipet, Tirupattur and Tiruvannamalai districts on Tuesday.
Officials of the Directorate of Public Health (DPH) and Preventive Medicine, which has organised the initiative, said the health teams in these camps would look into complete screening of pilgrims, fitness verification and vaccination. Such camp is held once a year.
The initiative is being done in coordination with the State and district Haj committees. The camp is mostly held at the Collectorate or the district health office due to easy accessibility of these places. “Pilgrims were administered the quadrivalent vaccine against meningitis, and were given oral polio drops. All pilgrims over the age of 65 were also administered the influenza vaccine,” R. Selvakumar, Deputy Director of Health Services (DDHS), Tiruvannamalai, told The Hindu.
Among these districts, Tirupattur has the highest number of 329 pilgrims, who were vaccinated at the two-day camp, followed by Vellore (248 pilgrims), Ranipet (211 pilgrims) and Tiruvannamalai (174 pilgrims). The camp, on an average, has two physicians and two nurses.
