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Over 7.6 lakh aged 15-18 years register for vaccination

The drive to vaccinate the 15-18 age group begins today.

Over 7.6 lakh beneficiaries in the 15-18 age group have registered themselves on the CoWIN portal for Covid-19 vaccination, which will start from 3 January, Monday, onwards. The data on CoWIN dashboard is reflecting the registration of 7,65,427 beneficiaries of the said age group by 11 pm. The registrations for vaccinating children in the age bracket of 15 to 18 years started on 1 January. CoWIN is the Government of India’s portal under the Union Ministry of Health launched for Covid-19 vaccination registration.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 December had announced that the country was preparing to begin the Covid-19 vaccination of children aged 15 to 18 years. According to Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, only Covaxin will be administered in this category of the population and additional doses will be sent to states and union territories.

Earlier, CoWIN platform chief Dr R.S. Sharma said, “We’ve added an additional ID card for registration, the student ID card, because some might not have Aadhaar or their identity cards.”

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya interacted with Health Ministers, Principal Secretaries, Additional Chief Secretaries of States/UTs and reviewed the national vaccination status, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The meeting was officiated by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, stated the ministry.

Mandaviya said, “We must focus on planning with regard to the 15-18-age group vaccination and precautionary doses for eligible beneficiaries.”

The Minister also urged the states to ensure that healthcare workers and frontline workers were fully vaccinated, as they formed the vulnerable categories.

While appreciating the efforts of states/UTs in achieving the national average of 90% coverage of first dose of vaccination of all eligible adults, he urged those states, whose progress of vaccination is below the national average, to ramp up their vaccination campaign.

States were directed to prepare a weekly plan to catch up and exceed the average national vaccination coverage and review the implementation of this plan on a daily basis at the level of Secretary/ACS Health with special emphasis in 5 poll-bound states of Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Manipur.

States/UTs were also instructed to ensure the orientation of vaccinators and vaccination team members for vaccination of 15-18 years age-group and the identification of dedicated session sites for vaccination of 15-18 years age-group.

Also, states/UTs were advised to share their requirement of vaccine doses through district-wise estimation of beneficiaries using Co-WIN.

They were urged to plan for the distribution of Covaxin to identify session sites well in advance and publish sessions for at least 15 days to provide sufficient visibility.

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