Vaccination for teens at schools, colleges from Jan. 3

• 1.47 lakh beneficiaries in Mysuru district
• Plans afoot to open vaccination centres
• Over 400 booths needed in entire district

Mysore/Mysuru: With the vaccination of those aged between 15 years and 18 years set to begin from Monday, Jan. 3, 2022, Deputy Commissioner (DC) Dr. Bagadi Gautham reviewed the preparations with District Health Officer (DHO) Dr. K.H. Prasad yesterday.

From Jan. 10, booster doses will also be given to healthcare workers, frontline workers and those aged above 60 years. The first challenge is to vaccinate the teenage population from 15 years to 18 years and those born after 2007 are in the target group.

“In Mysuru, there are 1.47 lakh beneficiaries with maximum student clusters concentrated in Mysuru city and taluk,” Dr. Prasad told Star of Mysore this morning.

As per the plans devised by the State Government and by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), all high schools and pre-university colleges will start vaccinating students aged 15 to 17 years and they will be administered Covaxin and will have to take their second dose after a span of 28 days.

“We have called a meeting of the Deputy Director of Public Instruction (DDPI) and Deputy Director of PU Education (DDPUE) at 3 pm today to take a call on the modality of vaccination administration. We are also ready to open vaccination booths and if so, we have to open 400 booths so that students can come and take the jab. A strategy will be worked out at the meeting,” the DHO said.

Camps will be held at all Government, aided and unaided institutions and if there are over 1,500 students in a particular institution, vaccination can be finished in just a day. “We are planning to wind up the vaccine process in a week or so,” Dr. Prasad said.

The DDPI and DDPUE will be asked to conduct Parent-Teacher Association meetings and ensure that they spread awareness about the vaccination programme and get their consent before jabbing the students.

“The target group of 17 years to 18 years and border age groups have already been vaccinated and the main focus will be from 15 to 17 years. We will ask the DDPI and DDPUE to coordinate with school managements to ensure that they hold camps for students who do not attend offline classes,” he said and added that the Health Department strategy will be formulated at today’s meeting.

As of now, we will start preparations by collating data, identifying the target population and chalking out a micro plan. The operational aspects can be finalised after we receive the complete guidelines, he said.