Covid-19 vaccination for teenagers: A complete guide
Recently, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the much-awaited news that COVID-19 vaccines for youngsters aged between 15 and 18 years will be available from the new year: 3rd January 2022. This decision has been wisely taken by the government amidst the rising coronavirus cases across the country. Along with the teenage group, frontline and healthcare workers are also set to receive their precaution dose 10th January 2022 onwards. These doses will also be available for senior citizens and people with comorbidities. Following this announcement, The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) also granted Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) to India’s indigenously developed coronavirus vaccine, popularly called Covaxin for youngsters above 12 years, with terms and conditions applied. Here’s everything you need to know about the Covid-19 vaccination for youngsters in India.
When will the vaccines be available?
From 1st January 2022, youngsters aged between 15 and 18 years will be able to register for the COVID-19 vaccine on the official vaccination portal CoWIN and the vaccination drive will begin from 3rd January 2022. Eligible youngsters can register using their school/student identity cards in absence of identity proofs like Aadhar cards. However, additional age proof might need to be shown during the time of administering the vaccines.
What are the vaccine options available for teenagers?
On Monday, 27th December 2021, 2 days after the Prime Minister’s announcement, the Union Health Ministry further declared that the vaccine option for the 15-18-year age group will only be Covaxin. The guidelines issued by the ministry also clearly states that individuals whose birth year is 2007 or before are all eligible for this vaccination.
Even though Covaxin currently happens to be the only option for children’s vaccination, Zydus Cadila’s anti-Covid vaccine called ZyCoV-D has their Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) by the drug regulator of India and can be administered to youngsters aged between 12 and 18 years.
How can youngsters register on CoWIN?
Youngsters aged between 15 and 18 years who are interested to receive the COVID-19 vaccine can register themselves online on an existing CoWIN account or by creating a new account using an unregistered mobile number. However, youngsters need to be legal citizens of India to be eligible for this vaccine registration.
Individuals who can’t avail the online CoWIN registration can also go and register in a nearby vaccination centre by the verifier or the vaccinator on duty using the facilitated offline registration mode. Similarly, appointments can also be booked offline through on-site walk-ins.