In India, the Jammu and Kashmir government today kickstarted the vaccination drive for children between the age group of 12-14 years.
The government said 360, 000 children are to be vaccinated in the Kashmir Valley. The government has planned to vaccinate around 35,000 children in 10 districts of Kashmir every day.
The schools have been shut across the valley since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. The education sector was among the worst hit and one of the reasons for students to come to the vaccination booth today was to keep safe from covid so that they don’t have to miss school again. The students were hopeful that all the children will get vaccinated, and schools will start running normally after it.
Vaccination is very important for all of us. If we want to get rid of covid, we need to take the shot. I would request every student as well as their parents to get this vaccine. It’s to make sure that our school life goes on normally and it is not affected in future. I am very happy I got my first shot today,” said Shazia, a student.
The health department has made arrangements across the valley to vaccinate children in every area. Teams have been deputed at various remote areas as well. The department plans to vaccinate all the children in the said age group within a span of three weeks. Around 1534 vaccination centres have been put in place.
“We have started the vaccination drive for children in the age group of 12-14 years for the Kashmir region. We have got a great response. Our target is 3.36 lac vaccinations for the Kashmir region, and we have kept vaccines available at all districts. The second dose of the vaccine must be administered after the 28th day of the first dose. Administration has done a commendable job during the pandemic, and we will keep at it. We just request the people to follow covid SOPs,” said Director Health Kashmir, Dr Mushtaq Ahmad.
The vaccination drives in Jammu and Kashmir have been among the top across India. According to the health department, a 100 per cent vaccination target was achieved in adults and 90 per cent vaccination was done in the age bracket of 15-18 years.