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For the first time, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is expected to be the only Covid-19 vaccine available for children aged 15 to 18, who will be immunised from January 3, according to official sources.
In addition, healthcare and frontline workers, as well as citizens over 60 with comorbidities, would receive a third dosage of the same vaccine, they had previously received.
In a televised speech to the country on Saturday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that vaccination against Covid-19 for children aged 15 to 18 years will begin on January 3, with a “precaution dosage” for healthcare and frontline workers beginning on January 10.
The decisions were made in the wake of an increase in Covid cases connected to the virus’s Omicron strain.
On the advice of their doctor, citizens over 60 years old and with comorbidities will be eligible to get the preventive dose starting January 10 next year, according to the prime minister.
According to an authoritative source, the people covered in this group will be between seven and eight crores.
According to the source, Zydus Cadila’s vaccine ZyCoV-D has yet to be included in the country’s inoculation programme, even though it gained emergency use authorization from the drug authority on August 20, making it the country’s first vaccination to be delivered to children aged 12 to 18.
The world’s first DNA-based needle-free COVID-19 vaccine, ZyCoV-D, was developed in-house.
The interval between the second and third doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, dubbed the “precaution dosage,” is expected to be nine to twelve months.
The necessary changes to the CoWIN site are being made in order to register the new vaccination category.
On Friday, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) gave emergency use to Covaxin, an indigenously manufactured vaccine for children aged 12 and above, subject to specific conditions.
The vaccination has been given both doses to more than 61% of India’s adult population. Similarly, over 90% of the adult population had their first dose of Covid vaccination.
The total number of Covid-19 vaccine doses given out in the country has surpassed 141 crore doses.
