Health department to vaccinate school, college dropouts

COIMBATORE: The health department is planning to trace 36,000 teenagers in the 15-18 age group, who are not attending schools or colleges, with the help of non-governmental organisations to vaccinate them against Covid.

These teens are dropouts and many of them could have already started working, an official said. “Of the 1.61 lakh people in the 15-18 age category in Coimbatore, 1.25 lakh are attending educational institutions. While 1.13 lakh of them have been vaccinated, we are struggling to find 36,000 people,” he said.

Some of the 36,000 kids, who are away from educational institutions, could have come forward and got vaccinated, said deputy director of health services P Aruna. “We do not have exact data on how many of them received vaccine. It is clear that the majority of them have not got the vaccine. We are planning to work with NGOs to get them vaccinated,” she said.

Meanwhile, the booster dose camps conducted by the district administration at primary health centres, urban primary health centres and government hospitals received good response. Many who have completed nine months after two doses of vaccination got themselves vaccinated.