New Delhi: Here’s good news for parents waiting to get the jab for their children between the 12-14 age group. According to Dr N K Arora, chairman of the Covid-19 working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation hinted at vaccination for the age group from February-end.


India started the Covid vaccination drive for adolescents aged between 15 and 18 years on January 3 under which they are being administered Bharat BioTech's Covaxin.


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So far, 3.31 crore children in the age category between 15 to 17 years have been vaccinated, as per the publication Times of India report. The drive has offered almost 45 percent coverage till now.


"We aim to cover all the 7.4 crore adolescents in the 15-17 age bracket with the first dose by January-end so that we can start vaccinating them with the second dose from early February and finish the second dose by February-end. We want to start vaccinating children between 12 and 14 years from February-end or early March," Dr Arora told the publication.


Experts have opined that children aged 12 to 17 are quite like adults. Arora said that the decision was taken in the interest of the adolescents belonging to the 15-17 group first. After the teenagers are vaccinated, the government will take up the policy decision to include the next age group, which is the 12-14 bracket, noted the chief.


Dr N K Arora told the publication that the Covid vaccination programme is set to start for the 12-14 age group from February-end. Earlier also he had stressed that immunising adolescents is important as they are quite mobile since they visit schools, colleges, mingle and hence pose a high risk of acquiring infection, especially the fast-paced Omicron variant of the coronavirus.


In October, the Subject Expert Committee on Covid-19 had granted emergency use approval to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for children in the 2-18 years age group.


AIIMS professor Dr Sanjay K Rai also claimed that the latest trials showed that the safety and immunogenicity of Covaxin are almost the same in children, as adults above 18-years of age.


Meanwhile, India has recorded 2,58,089 new cases in the last 24 hours in India. The active cases stand at 16,56,341.