Govt mulls over initiating COVID vaccination for people aged below 18

ISLAMABAD: The federal government is planning to begin COVID vaccination for people aged below 18 in the country as efforts to inoculate the general public are being expedited in wake of the fourth virus wave in the country, ARY NEWS reported. 

According to sources privy to the decision mulled over by the authorities, the federal government is planning to vaccinate people aged below 18 and a decision in this regard would be made by next week.

“In the first phase, vaccination will be approved for people in the age bracket of 15 and 18 while in the second phase, people aged between 12 and 15 will be inoculated,” they said adding that NADRA has also been consulted on how the process could be facilitated.

They said that currently, the government has focused on improving vaccination in 24 districts of the country where the positivity ratio has witnessed a surge. “The strategy has shown promising results with 904,000 people administered COVID doses during the past 24 hours,” they said.

On June 09, National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) allowed walk-in vaccination of citizens aged 18.

In a message on his official Twitter handle, Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar, who also heads the NCOC, said: “In today’s National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) meeting it was decided to start scheduling vaccination of registered 18 plus.”

“With this step, the vaccination of all eligible age groups would carried out,” he said, appealing to people to sign up for vaccination as soon as possible.

On May 27,  the government started registering citizens aged 18 and above for vaccination against Covid-19. People in the age bracket of 19 to 30 years were asked to register themselves by sending CNIC to 1166.