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The government will take a call on vaccinating children against Covid-19 after studying the data collated from the ongoing clinical trials, a senior Health Ministry official said on Tuesday.
“As you are already aware, the trials of the vaccines of Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila are underway. The day we get the data of these clinical trials, a decision will be taken depending on the advice of experts whether the vaccination should be allowed for children or not,” Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry, said replying to the question from BusinessLine at a press briefing here.
Rollout by August?
However, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, at a meeting of BJP MPs, hinted at the possibility of the vaccine being available for children by next month. Speaking to BJP MPs at their weekly Parliamentary Party meeting, the Minister gave updates on the vaccination drive, emphasising on more licences being given for manufacturing different vaccines and inoculation of children.
“There is a possibility that the vaccine for children will be available by August,” Mandaviya is believed to have told the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting. VK Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, also present at the media briefing, said around 150 million vaccines will be available by August. Earlier, in the day, the Ministry said it was committed to supplying 517 million doses to the States and Union Territories by the month end, as promised. It said it has already supplied 457 million doses and an additional 60.3 million doses are expected to be delivered by July 31, taking the total to 517 million doses
In June, India administered 11.97 crore vaccine doses while in July, till date, it has inoculated around 11 crore beneficiaries.
Supply schedule
The government clarified that vaccine doses are supplied to the States/UTs per advance information given to them and in various schedules through a month. “Therefore, availability of 516 million doses till the end of a month does not mean that every dose supplied is going to be administered. There will be stocks available for some time till the next supply,” it said.
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