TN eyes inoculating over 33 lakh children in 15-18 age group from Jan 3: Health official

Tamil Nadu government has identified over 33 lakh children aged between 15 and 18 to administer the vaccine against Covid-19 and would commence the exercise from January 3 at their respective educational institutions, a senior government official said on Saturday.

Director of Public Health T S Selvavinayagam, in a video message, said, "Eight per cent of those in the age group are studying in government-run schools and in private institutions in Class 10, Plus-1 and Plus-2." "Our plan is to vaccinate them in their schools by appointing a medical team. After checking the students' health, we plan to administer them with the (Bharat Biotech's) Covaxin," he said.

Similar to the current practice of registering the CoWin portal for adults, the details of the children would be registered in the CoWin portal using the mobile number of a family member, he said. "The identification card of the student of a respective school is sufficient for collecting the details (for this exercise)", he said.

"In the wake of the Omicron variant witnessing a surge, not only kids will be safe, the family members, too, will be safe through this vaccination exercise. We request the eligible students to make use of the vaccination camp in their schools," he said.

Recently, Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian said Chief Minister M K Stalin would formally launch the vaccination on January 3 in a government-run school at Porur here.

The 17th mega vccination camp would be conducted on January 2 (Sunday) through 50,000 camps, targeting the 94 lakh people who are eligible to receive the second dose of the vaccination.