Ahmad Adil
03 January 2022•Update: 03 January 2022
NEW DELHI
Amid a massive surge in the daily COVID-19 cases in many cities, India Monday began vaccination for the age group 15-18 years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month had announced that vaccination for children aged 15-18 years and as a booster dose to health and frontline workers will begin in January.
According to the government statistics, as of Monday afternoon, 1.89 million teenagers registered for the vaccination starting today.
The vaccination of the young age group has come at a time when cases in the country have almost trebled in the last few days.
On Monday, the Health Ministry said that 33,750 new infections were registered in the last 24 hours, taking the total cases to 34.9 million. Another 123 deaths pushed the death toll to 481,893.
It is the first time that India has recorded over 30,000 cases on a single day since mid-September.
The ministry also said on Monday that cases of the omicron variant have reached 1,700 in the country. The western Maharashtra state topped the count with 510 omicron cases, followed by the national capital New Delhi with 351 cases.
With cases rising, many Indian cities have announced more restrictions to curb the spread.
On Sunday, India's health minister advised the states to ramp up infrastructure to manage the high surge. The minister said the states have used only 17% of the funds that were approved under Emergency COVID Response Package (ECRP-II) for improving health infrastructure to fight COVID-19.
The country last year saw a devastating virus wave which pushed daily infections and fatality figures over 400,000 and 4,500, respectively. The unprecedented figures overwhelmed the country's health system and doctors were helpless to save lives as many hospitals ran out of oxygen supplies.
Recently, the government also said that over 60% eligible population is now vaccinated against COVID-19. As of Monday morning, 1.45 billion doses have been administered in the country of some 1.4 billion people.
