Setting a remarkable role model in Tamil Nadu's COVID-19 vaccination campaign, a village has become the first in the state to achieve 100% vaccination. It has poured light of hope to the state to enhance the vaccination drive and inoculate the vaccine doses to the eligible people. The development has come days after the revised vaccination guidelines came to effect in the country. 

Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian has announced on Thursday that the Kattur village in Tiruvarur district is the first village in Tamil Nadu to achieve 100% vaccination for all eligible adult populations. The agricultural hamlet has a population of 3,332 people and there were 2,334 people on the eligible list, excluding pregnant women and people who are under the age of 18. 

The health minister has said that all the eligible people in the village have taken at least one dose of the vaccine and this is the first district in the state to achieve this milestone. He announced the news while addressing the reporters at the secretariat. He further said that Kattur is the native place of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi's mother Anjugam. 

Subramanian has also said that a village is also a place where a museum is being built in memory of the former Chief Minister. He highlighted that Tamil Nadu will ensure 100% vaccination to tribal people, employees of tea estates, and residents in the tourist destinations over the next few weeks as part of an intense vaccination strategy ahead of the predicted third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He added that fresh cases of COVID-19 have been declining and the state has not seen the clusters from the Delta plus variant. Tamil Nadu has reported one case of Delta plus variant so far and a Chennai nurse who had contracted the variant had recovered and joined duty. The minister said that the nurse will receive the vaccine in a few weeks. 

According to the state health department, Tamil Nadu has reported 6,596 fresh COVID-19 cases, 10,432 discharges, and 166 deaths on Wednesday. Overall, the state had recorded 24,43,415 cases so far as of Wednesday of which 52,884 are active, 23,58,785 have been discharged, and 31,746 had succumbed to the viral infection. Tamil Nadu has tested 3,16,75,744 samples till Wednesday.