Chairman of the COVID-19 working group NTAGI, Dr NK Arora, on Monday, said that India will likely begin vaccinating children in the 12-14 age group against COVID-19 from March. The 15-18 population, estimated to be around 7.4 crores, will mostly be fully vaccinated by then, he said.
Over 3.45 crores of the 15-18 age group have already received their first dose of Covaxin. Their second dose is due in 28 days.
"Adolescents in this age group have been actively participating in the inoculation process, and going by this pace of vaccination, the rest of the beneficiaries in the 15-18 age group are likely to be covered with the first dose by January-end and subsequently their second dose is expected to be done by February-end," Arora said.
The government is likely to take a policy decision for vaccinating those in the 12-14 age group in March once everyone in the 15-18 group is covered, he said. There is an estimated 7.5 crore population in the 12-14 age group as well.
Over 157.2 crore doses of vaccine have been administered in the country thus far. Over 39 lakh doses were administered in the last 24 hours alone. India has also started administering the "precaution dose". The precaution dose is the third jab of the COVID-19 vaccine. It has been administered to healthcare, frontline workers, including personnel deployed for election duty and those aged 60 and above with comorbidities from January 10.