No Decision Yet On COVID Vaccination Of 12-14 Age Group By Centre: Report

, Dr N K Arora, chairman of the COVID-19 working group of NTAGI, on Monday said India may begin inoculating children in the 12-14 age group against COVID-19 in March as the 15-18 population is likely to get fully vaccinated by then. 

New Delhi: The Central government has not taken any decision regarding expanding the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive for children under the age group of 12 to 14 years, the news agency ANI reported quoting official sources. This comes a day after, Dr N K Arora, chairman of the COVID-19 working group of NTAGI, said India may begin inoculating children in the 12-14 age group against COVID-19 in March as the 15-18 population is likely to get fully vaccinated by then.

#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

Of the estimated 7.4 crores (7,40,57,000) population in the 15-18 age bracket, over 3.45 crore have received the first dose of Covaxin so far and their second dose is due in 28 days, Arora told media agencies on Monday, adding, 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 National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) Chairman, there is an estimated 7.5 crore population in the 12-14 age group.

The nationwide COVID 19 vaccination started on January 16, 2021. The new phase of universalization of COVID-19 vaccination commenced from 21^st June 2021. The vaccination drive has been ramped up through availability of more vaccines, advance visibility of vaccine availability to States and UTs for enabling better planning by them, and streamlining the vaccine supply chain.

Provisional vaccination reports till 7 am on Monday showed that with more than 39 lakh doses being administered in a span of 24 hours, the cumulative number has exceeded 157.20 crore doses. According to government data, over 3.45 crore first doses have been given to teenagers in the 15-18 years age group so far.

India’s COVID vaccination journey so far in 5 points

• 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 commenced from 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 people aged more than 45 years from April 1, 2021.
  4. The government then decided to expand its vaccination drive by allowing everyone above 18 to be vaccinated from May 1.
•  The next phase of COVID-19 vaccination has commenced from January 3 this year for adolescents in the age group of 15-18 years.
• India began 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 amid the country witnessing a spike in coronavirus infections, driven mainly by the Omicron variant of the virus.