Covid Vaccine for Children and Booster Doses from January : PM

New Delhi: India will start vaccinating children between the ages of 15 to 18 from January 3 next year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi informed in a late-night announcement. Added that healthcare and frontline workers will be provided with "precautionary doses" from January 10 next year.

"People above 60 years of age who have comorbidities will also have the option to take the booster dose on a recommendation from doctors. This will also start from January 10," PM Modi said.

The Prime Minister said that as people prepare to welcome the new year with hope and celebration, it's also a time to be careful as the highly contagious Omicron variant is rapidly pushing up COVID infections. Asked people not to panic but to be careful and alert.

"Use masks and wash hands regularly," he added.

The PM also informed the citizens that preparations are in order to tackle increasing infections and listed the number of hospital beds, oxygen beds available, and vaccination progress.

"Today, the nation has 18 lakh isolation beds, five lakh oxygen-supported beds, 1.4 lakh ICU beds, and 90,000 special beds for children. Today, we have over 3,000 functional PSA Oxygen plants and four lakh Oxygen cylinders have been provided to all states," he said.

"Apart from research on the vaccine, we were also working on approval processes, supply chains, distribution, training, IT support system, and certification. With these efforts, India started vaccinating its citizens on January 16 this year," he added.