Vaccination drive for teenagers held

Gandhinagar: Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Monday launched the vaccination drive for the children in the 15-18 age group at a school in Koba area of the state capital Gandhinagar.

The state health department has set a target to cover 36 lakh beneficiaries in the category in one week.

As per the state health department, a mega drive has been planned on January 7 with focus on students of Class 10. The Gujarat CM arrived at the school in the morning, inspected the facility and also interacted with some of the beneficiary children.

The drive is underway across 13 schools in the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation area, with the aim to cover 5,000 children on the first day itself, according to the Chief Minister's Office (CMO). About 3,500 centres across the state for the special vaccination campaign has been prepared by the state health department.

The vaccination drive will be also be carried out in Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) besides the schools and authorities will ensure that out-of-school children are also covered. Apart from that, the inoculation drive will also cover institutions for the disabled, orphanages and facilities for the care of mentally ill children.

The registrations for vaccination drive for children is available online at www.cowin.gov.in portal. It can also be done offline directly at the Urban Health Centres.

Meanwhile, state education minister Jitu Vaghani on Monday instructed the schools to provide the option of online education and not to insist on offline education due to increasing number of Covid-19 cases.