Covid vaccination of all eligible children at earliest priority for govt: PM Modi

New Delhi: Amid a spike in Covid-19 cases across the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday told chief ministers of many states that administering vaccines to every eligible child at the earliest was a priority for his government, and asked states to ensure their health infrastructure was scaled up and functioning properly.

In his meeting with CMs to review Covid-19 situation in the country, PM Modi said Covid-19 vaccination of all eligible children at the earliest is a priority for the government and specialised programmes will need to be conducted for it in schools.

This comes a day after the government paved the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination drive for those aged below 12 years with the DCGI on Tuesday granting emergency use authorisation to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for 6-12 years old and Biological E's Corbevax for the 5-12 age group.


The final decision, however, will be taken by the government's expert body on Covid-19 vaccination, health ministry sources have said. An increasing number of Covid-19 cases recently have emerged from schools, particularly in Delhi-NCR. For over two weeks now, India has been reporting over 2,000 cases every day.

The review meeting was attended by several chief ministers including Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee, Chhattisgarh's Bhupesh Baghel and Punjab's Bhagwant Mann. The PM also asked states to scale up their infrastructure, conduct regular safety audits of hospitals, and called for better coordination between states and Centre.

Many states have brought back Covid restrictions, including the mandatory use of masks and even limited social gatherings and timings of schools. Nikhil Modi, pulmonologist, Apollo Hospital told ET that while the cases have been largely mild, it was time to take note of the rise in cases in positivity rate.