- Saturday, February 22, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
VACCINATION of children in the age group of 15-18 years against Covid-19 kicked off in India on Monday (3) as Omicron cases witnessed a surge that has seen a number of states in the country imposing fresh restrictions.
In Delhi, where daily cases have seen a record rise in the last few days, vaccination centres at Fortis Hospital, Sri Ganga Ram Hospital and other facilities started inoculating the younger population, officials said.
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The Indian health ministry announced on December 27 that the locally-made Covaxin will be the only jab that will be given to the said age group.
On December 24, the Drugs Controller General of India gave emergency-use authorisation to Covaxin, developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, for children aged above 12 with certain conditions.
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On December 25, prime minister Narendra Modi said vaccination for children aged 15 to 18 years will start from January 3. He also said ‘precautionary’ (third) dose will be administered to the healthcare and frontline workers from January 10.
Registration for the vaccination began on the government’s CoWIN platform on Saturday (1) and till Sunday (2) evening, more than six lakh (0.6 million) registrations were made in the age group 15-18.
Indian health minister Mansukh Mandaviya asked the country’s states and union territories to set up separate vaccination centres, session sites, queue and different vaccination teams for the same age group to avoid mixing-up of vaccines.
Authorities in various hospitals in the national capital where jab centres were established since the beginning of the exercise on January 16 last year said that the infrastructure was ready to administer Covid vaccine shots to children after catering to the adult population, including healthcare workers and frontline staff members, who were given priority to be the first in line to get the jabs.
Doctors have even urged parents to bring their children for vaccination to protect them amid the fear of a third wave of the pandemic.
