Vaccination Begins For Kids Between 15 To 18 Years In India: Here's How To Book A Slot

How To Book Vaccine Slot For Kids: As the caseload for the coronavirus increases again in India, the government of India has started vaccination of children between the age of 15 and 18 years old from January 3. The registration for the vaccination began online on January 1 but to ease the process, walk-in registration is also open.

The registration online on CoWin app began on January 1 but the offline, walk-in registration begins from today.

The Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has appealed to parents to get their children vaccinated and said, "If the children are safe, then the future of the country is safe." As per the official estimates, there are 10 crore children in India between 15 to 18 years of age group. As of today over seven lakh children have registered already to get their jabs. The eligible children will get two doses 28 days apart.

Suggested Reading: Things Indian Moms Are Doing To Stay Away From Coronavirus Infection

Here's How You Can Book A Slot:

Here's how you can book a slot for your child using CoWin App:

1. Open the official CoWIN portal, which is cowin.gov.in.

2. Sign in using the phone number and OTP option or Arogya Setu account or Umang account.

3. Registration can be completed using national identity cards, Adhar etc.

4. After filing the information and completing the registration process, one can move on to booking slots as per the prefered date and time.

5. The person booking the slot needs to select the district and add pincode, after which a list of vaccination centres will pop up according to the place of preference and one needs to select a centre. Then complete the appointment.

Required ID Cards:

The eligible individual while visiting the vaccination centre for dose needs to have a valid national identity card which includes Aadhar Card. School ID cards can also be carried to the centre by children. The individual, after getting a dose, will receive the confirmation on the registered phone number and a notification of the vaccination on the Arogya Setu application. The individual can also download the confirmation document from CoWIN portal.

Which Vaccine Is Available For Kids?

Kids between 15 and 18 years of age will be given the Covaxin, developed by Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech, that was approved for emergency use for the age group by the Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI)on December 27.

This approval comes at a time of a surge in COVID-19 cases in India as well as the Omicron variant scare. The reason for approval was that children will become carriers of COVID-19 at home and schools and thus need to get vaccinated urgently. The decision was taken by the government as per the advice from the COVID-19 working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) and Standing Technical Scientific Committee (STSC).

Side Effects For Children

According to doctors, the side effects of vaccines for children are reportedly expected to be milder than those experienced by adults. The side effects include pain at the injection site, mild fever, body ache, swelling amongst other possible effects. The Bharat Biotech at the beginning of the vaccination campaign had announced possible side effects like swelling, redness, itching, headache, fever amongst others.

Dr Basavaraj GV, who is the professor of Paediatrics at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health said that health care workers are trained and equipped to handle the vaccination campaigns. Read more about it here.