• 1,48,184 beneficiaries in Mysuru; official launch at 8.30 am
• Registration begins on CoWin portal; 2 lakh doses in stock

Mysore/Mysuru: On Monday, Jan. 3, the State Government will kick off the Covaxin drive for the 15-18 years age group in schools and PU colleges, with the Centre announcing vaccination for teens.

While Karnataka has to vaccinate 31.75 lakh children in the target group, there are 1,48,184 beneficiaries at various schools and college students in Mysuru. The data has been obtained from Departments of Public Instruction and Pre-University Education. The vaccination drive will be done only in schools and colleges and as many as 100 teams will carry out the task in the entire district.

The vaccination drive in Mysuru will be launched by District Minister S.T. Somashekar at 8.30 am tomorrow at Maharani’s Pre-University College behind Jaganmohan Palace. Only 0.5ml of Covaxin will be given and the second dose will be provided 28 days after the first. Parental consent must be taken prior to administering vaccines to children with comorbidities. The Education Department has been asked to identify schools and colleges with three rooms spacious enough for establishing vaccination centres. Drinking water and hand-wash facilities must be set up.

Children born in 2007 or before are eligible for the vaccine and they can register on the CoWIN portal. The beneficiaries can register themselves through an existing account on CoWIN or by creating a new account through a unique mobile number. Students can register for vaccination on the portal using their student identity cards.

Beneficiaries can also be registered at the vaccination sites by the verifier or the vaccinator in the facilitated registration mode and appointments can be booked online or on-site (walk-in) and they have to produce Aadhaar Card and mobile numbers for receiving the OTPs and facilitating immunisation. If children do not have mobile phones, the parents’ mobile number can be used.

Mysuru district has around 1,500 schools and colleges and the district administration has got fresh stocks of Covaxin. District Health Officer Dr. K.H. Prasad said that the idea was to carry out vaccination in each school and college simultaneously. “As per plan, we are in a position to vaccinate 1,47,279 beneficiaries within a span of five days,”                  he said.

“As of now, over 2 lakh doses are available in the district and there will be no shortage as sufficient stocks are expected in the days ahead,” he added.