Ghaziabad: Covid jabs at 15 centres for 12-15 age group

Health department officials said that they are still awaiting the exact number of beneficiaries under the 12-15 age group, but their estimate is about 225,000 across Ghaziabad district

Starting Wednesday, the Ghaziabad district health department will inoculate children aged between 12 and 15 years with their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine at 15 special vaccination centres.

A health worker administers a dose of Covid-19 vaccine at the Combined District Hospital, Sanjay Nagar, in Ghaziabad on Tuesday. (Sakib Ali/HT)

Health department officials said that they are still awaiting the number of beneficiaries under the 12-15 age group, but their estimate is about 225,000 across Ghaziabad district.

The Union government on Monday decided to expand the Covid-19 vaccination programme and said that Biological E’s anti-Covid vaccine Corbevax will be administered to children aged between 12-15 years. The Union government has placed an order of 50 million Corbevax vaccine doses.

“In order to start the vaccination programme for children aged between 12-15 years, we have set up 15 dedicated centres for the purpose and the Corbevax jab will be administered. It is estimated that the district has about 225,000 such beneficiaries while the exact numbers will be received from the state government. We are waiting for further directions,” said GP Mathuria, nodal officer for Covid-19 vaccination.

The 15 centres are being set up at community health centres in Loni, Dasna, Modinagar, Muradnagar and primary health centre (PHC) at Bhojpur while the other centres include urban PHC at Maharajpur, Raj Nagar, Shashtri Nagar, Makanpur (Indirapuram), Raj Bagh, Saraswati Colony, Khoda and Vijay Nagar.

The vaccination will also be available at Kailash Mansarovar Bhawan in Indirapuram and the District Combined Hospital at Sanjay Nagar.

The previous vaccination programme involving children in the age group of 15-18 years began on January 3 this year.

According to the Uttar Pradesh government guidelines, children in the 15-18 age group were administered only Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin as it was the only vaccine with emergency use listing (EUL) recommended by the ‘Covid -19 Working Group’ of the National Technical Advisory Group on immunisation.

The Union ministry of health and family welfare on Tuesday said that the states were advised to ensure that only those who have attained the age of 12 years on the date of vaccination are administered the jabs.

“If the beneficiary is registered but has not attained the age of 12 years on the date of vaccination, Covid-19 vaccine is not to be given. Vaccinators and vaccination teams need to be trained to ensure that particularly for the 12-15 years age group, there will be no mixing of vaccines,” the ministry stated in a statement.

Ghaziabad district was given a target to vaccinate 234,488 children in the 15-18 age group and it has vaccinated 228,526 children till Monday evening with a coverage of 97.46%. Also, the district has so far vaccinated 108,512 children with the second dose till Monday evening.

“The first dose coverage is more or less achieved and we have about 100-150 children who turn up at our vaccination centres to get Covaxin jabs on a daily basis. Overall, in different categories (except children) we have about four lakh beneficiaries whose second dose is overdue and they have not turned up so far. Our teams are regularly calling them to make sure they take the second dose,” Dr Mathuria said.

For the 18-45 age group, the district has a target of vaccinating 1,875,791 beneficiaries and so far, it has achieved first dose vaccination of 2,074,144 beneficiaries and the coverage for the second dose stood at 1,677,691 till Monday evening.

For the 45+ age group, the district was issued a target of vaccinating 920,111 beneficiaries and it has administered 845,157 first doses and 712,955 second doses till Monday evening.