Health Minister Keshav Mahanta said here on Friday that the goal of the government of Assam is to vaccinate all eligible recipients of 15-18 years of age with Covaxin within one week.

The health and education departments will work together to set up special camps in schools and colleges across the state to vaccinate students. Those who are not in school or university can be vaccinated at regular vaccination centers.

The vaccination of this new group of people will start on January 3. Our mission is to complete the first dose of vaccination for all eligible 15-18 years-old before January 9th. The third dose of vaccination for 60 and above and the frontline and medical staff from January 10, Mahata said.

“I ask all parents and guardians to ensure that their children receive the first dose of vaccine before January 9th so that they are eligible for the second dose of vaccine before the final exam or board exam in February,” he added. Director (Health Services) Munindra Nath Ngatey said that there are nearly 2 million eligible recipients in Assam, aged 15-18.

Mahanta said that so far, the state has received 37.5 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine (21.7 million first doses and 15.8 million second doses) across the state.

Although Assam has not yet recorded any cases of Omicron variants of Covid-19, the minister stated that it is already preparing to deal with the rapidly spreading variants.

“In order to counter the possible impact of Omicron, we currently have 9,000 extra beds, 1,000 intensive care beds, and 2,600 oxygen beds. If needed, we can increase the total number of beds to 25,000 within a week,” Mahanta said.

He added that the state will establish two genome testing laboratories (one in Jorhat and the other in Guwahati) in the next few days for genome sequencing of Omicron variants.

To date, Assam has recorded 620,563 Covid-19 cases, of which 612,282 have recovered and 6,164 have died.

Complete News Source : Hindustan Times