India to begin vaccinating children in 12-14 year age group from Wednesday

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan sent letters to chief secretary and administrator of States and UTs asking them to be vigilant over such vaccination process.

New Delhi: Vaccination for 12-14-year-olds will begin from Wednesday with Corbevax administered to the age group. Besides, the government has also decided to waive the condition of comorbidity for those above 60 years for getting the precaution dose.

The health ministry has targeted 4.7 crore children between the age of 12 and 14 years for COVID 19 vaccination. On Tuesday, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan sent letters to chief secretary and administrator of States and UTs asking them to be vigilant over such vaccination process.

"As Corbevax vaccine is approved only for those above 12 years of age, it should be ensured that children who are above 12 years of age only, are vaccinated i.e. those who are born on or before March 15, 2010. The vaccinator and verifier should ensure that beneficiaries less than 12 years on the date of vaccination are not vaccinated even if she or he is registered on CoWIN," said Agarwal in his letter to State chief secretary and administrator of UTs.

Bhushan said that precaution dose can now be provided to all persons of 60 years and above age. "The prioritisation and sequencing of this precaution dose would be based on completion of 9 months i.e. 39 weeks from the date of administration of second dose. Vaccination of precaution dose should be with the same vaccine with which primary vaccination was done," Bhushan said.

He said while the national COVID 19 vaccination programme has covered 95.5 percent of the eligible population (15 years and above) with at least one dose of COVID 19 vaccine, while more than 80 percent of the eligible beneficiaries are fully vaccinated.

"More than 180 crore vaccine doses of COVID 19 vaccine have been administered. This mammoth task has been made possible with the active support from States and UTs," he said.

It may be mentioned here that precaution dose is also being administered to the health care workers, frontline workers, and 60 years and above age group with comorbidities since January 10.