Vaccination for children in the 12-14 age group, which was rolled out on March 16 in the State, has been the least in the BBMP areas at 11.2%. Hassan and Udupi are the best performing districts with a coverage of 79.5% and 75.5% respectively. The drive, which was being held in government health centres so far, began in schools from Friday.
Children born on or before March 15, 2010, are eligible for vaccination in this phase. Each beneficiary will be administered two doses of Corbevax (the authorised vaccine for this group). The second dose will be administered 28 days after the first.
According to data from the State Health Department and CoWIN portal, a total of 9,83,944 (48.6%) children in this age group have been vaccinated in the last 15 days. With a stock of 20 lakh doses of Corbevax, the State had set a target of vaccinating 20.24 lakh children in this age group.
In BBMP, so far a mere 31,585 of the targeted 2,81,541 children have been inoculated so far. The coverage that remained at 9.6% on March 31, has improved marginally on Friday (April 1) after vaccination took off in schools. Sources said the poor coverage was also because some paediatricians are not convinced about the efficacy of the vaccine as data on the vaccine’s clinical trials have not been published yet.
Apart from BBMP, Vijayapura, Bengaluru Urban, and Kalaburgi have also recorded poor coverage. While Vijayapura has recorded 33.5% coverage (of the 84,910 target), Bengaluru Urban and Kalaburgi have covered 34.5% and 36.7% of their target.
Besides, six districts — Mysuru, Bidar, Ballari, Tumakuru, Yadgir and Davangere — have recorded a coverage ranging between 40% and 49%. Four districts — Kolar, Bengaluru Rural, Udupi and Hassan — are the only districts that have a coverage that is above 70%, according to data.
BBMP Special Commissioner (Health) K.V. Trilok Chandra said the poor coverage so far was because many parents did not want to get their children vaccinated in health centres. “They were waiting for the drive to begin in schools, mainly because it was the exam season. On the first day itself (of the drive beginning in schools) 4,530 children were inoculated in 55 schools,” he said.
Asserting that there was no vaccine hesitancy for inoculation in schools, the official said: “We hope to cover the entire target of 2.81 lakh in the next one week to 10 days.”
According to health officials, children who miss their vaccination on session days at schools will be directed to the nearby healthcare centres. Vaccination for children with any comorbidities will be carried out in the healthcare facility under the supervision of a medical officer.
