New Delhi: The National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NTAGI) meeting to examine the efficacy data of the COVID 19 vaccines approved by Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for children between 5-12 years of age, in order to kickstart the inoculation process, remained inconclusive on Wednesday.
On April 27, India's drug regulator (DCGI) approved Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for children between 6-12 years and Biological E's Corbevex for those between 5 to 12 years of age. Two days after its approval, the NTAGI held a review meeting to give a go ahead to the vaccines for children. However, there was no consensus among the members over the vaccine approval in the first meeting.
The meeting remained inconclusive over the SoP (Standard Operating Procedure) and detailed guidelines for vaccinating children between 5-12 years of age. The NTAGI is an advisory group of the Health Ministry that consists of multidisciplinary groups of experts responsible for providing information to the government to make evidence based decisions regarding vaccine and immunization policy.
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Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan is the chairman of the NTAGI. The decision for emergency approval of COVID 19 vaccines for children was taken after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement of vaccinating all eligible children at the earliest with special campaigns in schools on priority basis. There was no consensus among NTAGI members on reducing the gap between the second dose and the precaution dose from the current nine months to six months for all.
The nationwide rollout for precaution dose for health care and frontline workers and those aged 60 and above started on January 10. Subsequently, on April 10, the government approved precaution dose for all. As on Wednesday, India has administered 1,89,38,33,473 doses with 1,00,41,95,378 first doses, 86,23,05,636 second doses, and 2,72,32,459 precaution dose.
The number of India's total vaccination sites currently stands at 35,787, with 34,625 of them government facilities and 1,162 private ones. 3,75,64,127 children between the age group of 12-14 and 10,12,17,790 children between the age group of 15-17 have received the COVID 19 vaccine so far.
