Vaccinating adolescents
Covid-19 has hit almost all the facets of life. Be it economy, travel, health or any other sector including education, all spheres of human activity have been touched deeply.
However, in case of education the pandemic has meant loses that are hard to compensate or cover as the students community has lost almost two years that has meant that the learning process has witnessed a halt and in some cases a reversal as well.
Since the only hope that could help save the student’s community from further loss is vaccinating the adolescents so that normal schooling can start immediately across the country. Since the task is mammoth as a huge chunk of the population is to be vaccinated before schools and colleges start opening up and resume normal work, the health authorities also need o gear up and get going.
Notably, 65 per cent of the adolescents in the 15-18 age group nationwide have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. This means that the world’s largest vaccination campaign is creating new records.
According to Union Health Ministry officials, 34.90 lakh eligible adolescents have been given the second dose. With the administration of more than 55 lakh vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 168.47 crore.
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 from February 2 last year.
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 last year. The government then decided to expand its vaccination drive by allowing everyone above 18 to be vaccinated from May 1 last year.
The next phase of COVID-19 vaccination has commenced from January 3 this year for adolescents in the age group of 15-18 years.
Since this age group too has witnessing susceptibility to covid-19, the government’s efforts to cover this chunk of population have become all the more important. Primarily because this segment of the society has to bear the additional burden of taking forward the education process that has witnessed a grinding halt since the past two years now.
Importantly, India began administering precaution dose of COVID-19 vaccine to healthcare workers, 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 fuelled by the Omicron variant of the virus.
KV Network
