Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on January 3 said that the state government is targeting to vaccinate 20 lakh children in the 15-18 years age group against COVID-19 within two months.
Inaugurating the vaccination drive for the 15-18 years age group in the state, CM Himanta Biswa Sarma took part in the drive at Oil India Higher Secondary School in Duliajan on January 3.
On the first day of the drive, the state government vaccinated nearly 90,000 children from the age group, in around 500 government, private and venture schools.
Speaking on the occasion, CM Sarma said: “Today we have launched the COVID-19 vaccination programme in the entire Assam for children, students between the age group of 15-18 years. In Assam, the eligible beneficiaries of this age group is around 20 lakh. We are giving Covaxin. We will be able to cover the vaccination for this age group within a period of 45 days to 60 days. From January 10, we will start vaccination programme for the frontline workers, doctors, nurses and they will get precautionary dose that means the third dose.”
The chief minister also informed that booster shots for the senior citizens will be provided on medical advice from January 10 onwards.
Total 405 eligible school students are getting vaccinated today in camp organised by Dibrugarh Dist Admin & Dist Health Society in collaboration with Oil India Ltd, Duliajan. We are going to start a precautionary third dose of vaccination for our frontline warriors from Jan 10. pic.twitter.com/CHoYr3mNwQ
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) January 3, 2022
“We will also launch precautionary dose for the senior citizens from January 10 on the basis of medical advice. I hope if we can complete the vaccination on time, we will be able to save our citizens from the third surge. Assam has a very high degree of vaccination track record. So far, we have covered 3.76 crore doses and the first dose is almost completed and in second dose we have covered around 70 per cent of our citizens. I am hopeful that we will be able to cover the entire citizen by this month with full doses,” Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
The Assam chief minister further said that, vaccination is the biggest preparation to deal with third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have adequate hospital beds, ICUs and we have good oxygen supply to face any eventually,” Sarma added.
The Assam government expects to complete vaccination of the students of age group of 15-18 years by the first week of March.
