About 150,000 register as vaccination for 15+ begins
Nearly 150,000 children between 15 and 18 years of age registered to receive Covid-19 vaccination on the government’s CoWIN portal on the first day they become eligible, as India expands its vaccination programme to include most teenagers from January 3.
“When children are safe, country’s future is safe. On the occasion of New Year, from today onwards registration of 15-18 years for Covid vaccination on CoWIN is being started,” health minister Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted on Saturday. “It’s my request to parents that they should register their eligible children for vaccination.”
Children aged 15-18 will start receiving Covid-19 vaccinations from January 3, and health and front line workers will start getting a thrid precautionary jab from January 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on December 25.
The decision was taken on the advice of technical experts on immunization looking into the scientific evidence generated globally on children’s vaccination against Covid-19.
“Evidence shows while the disease is mild in children less than 10 years old, it manifests like adults in children between 12 and 15 age group. Last two years’ data show that 75% of the Covid-related deaths in children took place between 15 and 18 years age group,” said Dr NK Arora, chair of the Covid working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.
“Also, this is largely the age in which children socially interact. It has been seen that adolescents largely behave like adults.”
“Globally also, stepwise vaccination has been allowed, and we followed a similar pattern in India,” Dr Arora said. “Maximum Covid-related complications have been seen in the population group between 15-16 and 18 years, which is why vaccination in children has been started in this age group.”
Expanding vaccination coverage to this age cohort also reduces the risk of infections among more vulnerable family members.
“Eventually we will have to vaccinate everyone, and the disease in children may have been mild so far. But there is always a risk of them bringing the infection back home and putting at risk the elderly in the family and those with underlying medical conditions,” said Dr Vikas Maurya, director and head of department, respiratory medicine, Fortis Healthcare.
To inoculate children between 15 and 18 years of age, the health ministry has advised provincial authorities to either designate separate vaccination centres or deploy separate vaccinator teams to avoid confusion on the vaccine to be administered to them. The newly eligible teenagers will be only given Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
The central government has said that it will ensure additional doses of the Bharat Biotech vaccine is sent to all states and Union territories. “Union Government will share the supply schedule of ‘Covaxin’ with all the States and UTs in the next few days,” health secretary Rajesh Bhushan had written in a letter to all states last Tuesday.
Authorities at various hospitals in Delhi, which are among the facilities which have hosted vaccination centres since the start of the exercise on January 16, said infrastructure set up is ready to administer Covid vaccine shots to children, after having catered to the adult population, including healthcare workers and frontline staff, who were given priority to be the first in line to receive jabs.
A large number of schools and other educational institutions have been used as Covid vaccination centres, and arrangements were being made there as well.
According to the guidelines, which will come into effect from January 3, those aged 15 and above will be able to register on CoWIN. In other words, “all those whose birth year is 2007” or before, shall be eligible.
Private hospitals too have geared up for this phase of the exercise, which will take place amid a massive spike in case of Covid and an Omicron scare.
“CoWIN registration for this category has commenced. We are all set,” said Dr Bishnu Panigrahi, Group Head, Medical Strategy and Operations, Fortis Healthcare group.
Delhi on Friday recorded 1,796 fresh Covid cases, the highest single-day rise since May 22, and zero death while the positivity rate mounted to 2.44 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department. On Thursday, 1,313 cases were recorded with a positivity rate of 1.73 per cent, as per officials figures. The daily cases count had breached the 1000-mark after a gap of seven months.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had on Thursday cautioned that the latest variant of the coronavirus is gradually spreading in the community.