BMC ready to start vaccination for city's adolescents: Mumbai Mayor

Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar on Monday said that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is prepared to launch a Covid-vaccination drive for 33 lakh children between the age group of 2 and 17 years. The civic body has indicated that as soon as the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) permits the vaccination programme to roll out for children, it will not require any infrastructure upgrade.
Hailing the city’s vaccination drive, Pednekar asked citizens to continue to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour like wearing masks. Talking to media persons, Pednekar said: "We must all act responsibly, considering the fact that the danger of the third wave of covid19 is not over yet. Hence we need to continue covid appropriate behaviour."
Elaborating on BMC's readiness on vaccination drive for children, Pednekar said: “Vaccination for the age group of 2 and 17 years will start as soon as we receive the guidelines from the union government and we also require to the stock of vaccines for this age group."
The union government cleared the decks for vaccination for children and directed that the age group below 18 years of age be included in India’s Covid vaccination drive with the government’s Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on October 12 recommending the grant of Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) for Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for the age group of 2-17 years.
The clearance came in the backdrop of schools reopening for classes 8 to 12 in the city. The BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal informed on Sunday that currently the city has 475 vaccination centres and 97% of eligible citizens of Mumbai have received a single dose of vaccination and 55% are fully vaccinated so far.