Over 3.45 crore teens have already received their first dose (File)
India will likely begin inoculating children in the 12-14 age groups against Covid from March as the 15-18 population will mostly be fully vaccinated by then, Dr NK Arora, Chairman of the COVID-19 working group NTAGI, said today.
Of the estimated 7.4 crore children in the 15-18 age bracket, over 3.45 crore have already received the first dose of Covaxin so far and their second dose is due in 28 days, he said.
"Adolescents in this age group have been actively participating in the inoculation process, and going by this pace of vaccination, the rest of the beneficiaries in the 15-18 age group are likely to be covered with the first dose by January-end and subsequently their second dose is expected to be done by February-end," said the Chairman of the Covid working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI).
Once everyone in the 15-18 age group is covered, the government is likely to take a policy decision for initiating the vaccination drive for the 12-14 age group in March, he said.
According to him, there is an estimated 7.5 crore population in the 12-14 age group.
Provisional vaccination reports till 7 am today showed that over 39 lakh doses were administered in 24 hours, taking the cumulative number to over 157.2 crore doses.
According to the government data, over 3.45 crore first doses have been given to children in the 15-18 years age group so far.
The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16 last year with healthcare workers (HCWs) getting inoculated in the first phase. The vaccination of frontline workers (FLWs) started on February 2, 2021.
The next phase of COVID-19 vaccination began on March 1 last year for people over 60 years of age and those aged 45 and above with specified co-morbid conditions.
The country launched vaccination for all aged over 45 years from April 1, 2021, and allowed everyone above 18 to be vaccinated from May 1.
India has begun administering the "precaution dose" - the third jab of COVID-19 vaccine - to healthcare, frontline workers including personnel deployed for election duty and those aged 60 and above with comorbidities from January 10 as the country witnessed a spike in Covid infections, driven by the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of the virus.