India likely to begin vaccination for 12-14 age group by March: Top govt official

India is likely to begin vaccination drive in the 12-14 age group against COVID-19 in March, once the 15-18 population gets fully vaccinated, a top government expert has said.

Chairman of the COVID-19 working group of National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) Dr N K Arora said the government is likely to take a policy decision for initiating the vaccination drive for the 12-14 age group in March, according to news agency PTI.

He estimated that they are 75 million population in the 12-14 age group.

Buoyed by the active participation of teens in the 15-18 age group, he said, “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.”

Provisional vaccination reports till 7 am on Monday showed that with more than 39 lakh doses being administered in a span of 24 hours, the cumulative number has exceeded 157 million doses.

According to government data, over 34.5 million first doses have been given to children in the 15-18 years age group so far.

The Indian government had begun inoculating the kids in the 15-18 age group from January 1. Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin was the only vaccine given green light by the government to be administered among teenagers.

(With inputs from agencies)