The State government’s free COVID-19 vaccination drive for students set to travel abroad began at the Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM), Narayanaguda, on Saturday. Around 7,000 students have already registered, and around 280 were administered the first dose of vaccine on the first day of the drive.
Only Covishield is being given to the students, and the time interval between two doses has been reduced from 12-16 weeks to four weeks. Some students had raised concerns that since they had to travel abroad in a few weeks, they would not be available for the second dose if the gap of 12-14 weeks was to be followed.
IPM director K. Shankar said that the State government sought and received permission from the Centre for reduction of the time interval for students. A special code was generated for IPM to allow administering of the second dose after four weeks. Vaccination certificates will be generated through CoWin.
The State Health department has uploaded an e-link to register for the drive on ‘health.telangana.gov.in’, which went live on Friday. Upon clicking on ‘Vaccination for students going abroad’, potential beneficiaries are directed to another site where they have to provide their mobile numbers and then enter an OTP.
Dr Shankar said that after registration, a potential beneficiary would receive a message with date and time slot for the vaccination. From Monday, around 700 students would be given the jab every day.
Students have to carry their original passport. Besides, they need to show either the visa stamp, or admission letter from the recognised overseas university that they intend to study at. A poster listing out the requirements has been pasted at the institute.
All beneficairies have to book a slot again for the second dose.
Though officials had anticipated a large number of students to register for the vaccine, they were surprised at the response — 7,000 registrations — within a short span. Every year, thousands of students from the State fly to the United States of America, United Kingdom and Australia among other countries to pursue higher education.