Amid the spread of the Omicron variant and the surge in COVID-19 cases, India will begin to vaccinate the 15 to 18-year-old age group against the virus from today.
This began a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement that COVID-19 vaccination will start from 3 January for children.
According to estimates, approximately 10 crore children in the 15-18 age group are eligible for the jab.
Here are important points one must know as India begins a new milestone in the fight against COVID-19.
• The vaccination drive is open to all those who are born in 2007 and before that. Teenagers were asked to register themselves — either by using their Aaadhar card or their student ID — on the CoWin platform.
• As of Sunday evening, over 6.35 lakh children in the age group of 15 to 18 years had registered on the CoWin website to receive their vaccinations from Monday onwards.
• Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin will be the one that will be administered to eligible children — in two doses 28 days apart.
• Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Sunday asked states and union territories to set up separate vaccination centres, to avoid mixing-up of COVID vaccines during administration of shots to those in the 15-18 age group.
• Delhi has released a list of 159 centres where teenagers between the age of 15-18 can received their vaccination. Walk-in registration is also being provided at the vaccination centres.
• Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, has set up dedicated vaccination centres in nine of its jumbo centres to ensure a speedy pace where a walk-in facility will be available. These are: Richardson and Cruddas Centre at Byculla, the NESCO jumbo centre at Goregaon, the NSCI at Worli, the BKC jumbo centre and the Jumbo centres at Kanjurmarg, Malad, Mulund and Dahisar, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
• Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray, along with Mayor Kishori Pednekar, will inaugurate the vaccination programme at the BKC jumbo COVID centre at 11 am on Monday.
• On Christmas day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that vaccination for the 15-18-year age group will begin from 3 January and that a ‘precautionary’ third dose would be administered to health workers and citizens above the age of 60 from 10 January.
With inputs from agencies
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