Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh on Monday launched the COVID-19 vaccination for children in the age group of 15 to 18 years along with the rest of the country.
In Itanagar, RK Mission Hospital Secretary Swami Vishweshananda launched the inoculation drive at the hospital’s COVID vaccination centre in the presence of State Nodal Officer (Immunization) Dimong Padung, Itanagar Capital Complex District Immunization Officer Tahan Mize and others.
The RKMH secretary, in his brief speech, said the COVID-19 vaccination programme is been carried out for the past year and appealed to all eligible people to come forward to get themselves vaccinated to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the launch programme, the State Nodal Officer (Immunization) Padung said Arunachal Pradesh has targeted to inoculate 98,000 adolescents of this age group against the COVID-19.
“Now, we have started the vaccination session for the 15-18 years group in hospitals across the state. As it progresses in the coming days, based on its response we will reach out to the schools as well. Mainly, our target will be to cover the secondary and higher secondary schools, where our target groups are there,” he said.
While informing that the state has already received 98,000 doses of Covaxin for inoculating the children of 15-18 years, Padung said, “This is new vaccine for the state. It was run in various other states and is now given to Arunachal Pradesh. This is very safe vaccine.”
As the beneficiaries took the first dose of this vaccine today they will get the second dose after 28 days unlike Covishield, of which the dosing gap is 84 days, he said.
“We will try our best to achieve this target as early as possible. We will try to get all the adolescents vaccinated,” the state nodal officer said while adding that 98,000 was “not a big number”.
In Itanagar Capital Complex, the vaccination session for the 15-18-year-olds will run at seven inoculation centres concurrently with that of other priority groups aged 18 years and above, District Immunization Officer Mize informed.
The centres are located at Itanagar’s RKMH, Urban Primary Health Centre (UPHC) Itafort, PHC Chimpu, TRIHMS Naharlagun, UPHC Rakap (Naharlagun), UPHC Karsingsa and PTC Banderdewa PHC.
