Vaccination of children in the 15-18 age group against COVID-19 began on Monday as inoculation centres across the country started administering the shots to the younger population.
The process to vaccinate children has commenced amid a scare of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
In Delhi, where daily cases have registered a record surge in the last few days, vaccination centres at Fortis hospital, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, and other facilities began administering the jabs to younger population, officials said.
The vaccine option for this age group would only be Covaxin, according to guidelines issued by the Union health ministry on December 27.
The Drugs Controller General of India granted emergency use authorisation to indigenously-developed Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for children above 12 years with certain conditions on December 24.
The CoWIN platform had till Sunday evening recorded over six lakh registrations in the age group of 15-18.
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has advised states and Union Territories to provide separate vaccination centres, session sites, queue and different vaccination teams for this age group to avoid the mixing-up of vaccines.
The registration for this category of beneficiaries had opened on Saturday.
According to the guidelines, they can self-register online through an existing account on CoWIN or can also register by creating a new account through a unique mobile number as is the case with all other categories of beneficiaries.
According to official documents shared by sources, the cohort size for vaccination in this category in Delhi is 10 lakh, as per the Registrar General of India's figures.
Authorities at various hospitals in Delhi where vaccination centres were established since the start of the exercise on January 16 last year, have said that the infrastructure set up was ready to administer Covid vaccine shots to children after catering to the adult population, including healthcare workers and frontline staff, who were given priority to be the first in line to receive the jabs.
Doctors have urged parents to bring their children for vaccination as soon as possible to lend them protection amid a fear of a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dear Reader,
Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.
We, however, have a request.
As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.
Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.
Digital Editor
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU