Over 3 lakh children register for first dose of vaccine on CoWIN

Thousands of children in the 15-18 age group from all over the nation have registered for their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine on the central government's CoWIN portal ahead of the vaccination drive scheduled to begin on Monday, January 3.

As per the data on the CoWin dashboard, 3,57,984 beneficiaries of the 15-18 age group had registered on the portal by 9:30 am.

Registrations for vaccinating 15-18-year-old children against COVID-19 began on January 1. As of now, only Covaxin has been aproved for use in this age group although Zydus Cadila's innovative 'nasal vaccine' which does not require injection has also been suggested.

Further, the data on the portal revealed that as many as 92,18,61,878 registrations have been made so far, including 57,37,14,969 of age group 18-44, and 34,77,88,925 for age above 45. As of 11:38 AM, the total number of vaccines administered crossed 1,45,09,52,145 injections with 4,43,657 doses administered on Sunday so far.

As per the announcement made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December, the vaccination fo children in this age group is scheduled to take place in order to allow school's some greater measure of offline functioning and slowly allow them to return to normal. Vaccination of those with comorbidities and frontline health workers will begin from January 10.

In the context of the vaccination of the age group 15-18 years, the Union Health Secretary informed the States and UTs that only 'Covaxin' is to be administered in this population category and additional doses of 'Covaxin' will be sent to all states and UTs.

India has so far logged 27,553 fresh Covid-19 cases and 284 deaths. Active caseload stands at 1,22,801 while the Omicron tally is at 1,525.