India to Roll Out COVID Vaccines for 12-14 Year Olds This Week: What to Know

Kids aged 12-14 years will start receiving Corbevax COVID vaccine starting 16 March, announced the Health Minister.

12 to 14-year-old kids in India to receive COVID vaccines

(Photo: iStock)

Children between the ages of 12 and 14 will be allowed to receive COVID-19 vaccines from Wednesday, 16 March, announced Union Health Minister, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya on Monday.

Taking to his official Twitter handle to make the announcement, Dr Mandaviya said,

"I am happy to inform that from March 16, COVID vaccination of children in the age group of 12 to 13 and 13 to 14 is starting."

"Also, everyone aged 60+ will now be able to get precautionary doses," he added. Till now, apart from health care workers, only those over the age of 60 who have comorbidites were eligeble for the precautionary doses.

According to reports, Biological E's Corbevax COVID vaccine will be administered to children in this age group.

What Do We Know About Corbevax for kids?

Hyderabad based pharmaceutiacal company, Biological E's COVID vaccine, Corbevax received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on 21 February for use in children and adolescents aged 12 to 18 years.

Corbevax is a protein subunit vaccine.

This is a tried and tested vaccine technology that works by introducing just the spike protein of the virus directly to the body to trigger an immune response.

Like Covaxin, Covishield and the mRNA COVID vaccines, Corbevax too is a 2 dose COVID vaccine.

Back when it was granted emergancy use authorisation (EUA), Health Minister, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, had called Corbevax vaccine, "India's 1st indigenously developed RBD protein subunit vaccine against COVID-19."

When COVID vaccines were first rolled out for 15 to 18 year olds on 3 january, only Bharat Biotech's Covaxin was allowed to this age group.

According to official data, Over 3.5 crore children between the ages of 15 and 18 have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine since they were rolled out for this age age group on 3 January.