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| Edited By: DNA Web Team |Source: DNA webdesk |Updated: Jan 18, 2022, 03:55 PM IST
The current Covid-19 spike across the nation has prompted the central government to speed up its vaccination drive. The Centre also started the administration of the precautionary dose to frontline workers and senior citizens with comorbidities.
The Covid-19 vaccination drive for the children between the ages 15 to 18 has also started earlier this month, and now, people have been waiting for the vaccination of children between the ages 12 to 14 in the next phase of the immunization drive.
Addressing this, official sources have recently stated that the Centre has not taken any definite decision regarding the expansion of the nationwide vaccination drive for children. Till now, no decision has been made to start the vaccination drive for children between the ages of 12 to 14.
#COVID19 | No decision yet by the union health ministry on vaccination for children of age group 12-14 years: Official sources pic.twitter.com/gUUmIEWSIp — ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2022
This comes just a day after Dr N K Arora, chairman of the Covid-19 working group of NTAGI, said that the government is set to commence the Covid-19 vaccination drive for a younger age group sometime in March, as the 15-18 population is likely to get fully vaccinated by then.
While interacting with media agencies, Dr Arora had said that once 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.”
According to the official data, as many as 7,40,57,000 people fall in the 15 to 18 population in the country, out of which over 3.45 crore have been vaccinated with the first dose of Covaxin. The second dose of the Covaxin shot will be due in 28 days.
As per the chairman of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), there is an estimated 7.5 crore population in the 12-14 age group. The vaccination drive of teens between the ages 15 to 18 commenced on January 3, 2022.
The number of Covid-19 cases across the country has spiked over the past month, as India reported 2,38,018 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours. With this, India's total tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 3,76,18,271, which includes 8,891 cases of the Omicron variant.
