More than 5,000 children in the 12-14 age group got the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on the first day of the drive for them, the Health Department said on Thursday. The administration had rolled out the inoculation process for the age group on Wednesday with Biological E's intramuscular vaccine, Corbevax.
It started at a single school in each of the 30 districts of Odisha in the first phase and the facilities will be ramped up later. On the first day, 5,024 children in the age group were jabbed with the first dose in the state. Nayagarh district recorded the highest vaccination as 729 children took the shots, according to the vaccine data by the department.
As many as 15.21 lakh children will be given jabs by specially-trained 600 health workers. The gap between the two shots will be 28 days. A total of 100 kids were inoculated at the IRC Village Government High School in Bhubaneswar, where an estimated 44,000 children would be vaccinated.
Odisha recorded 105 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, crossing the 100 mark after six days. The state had logged 80 cases and zero fatality on Wednesday. There are 743 active COVID-19 cases and 111 patients recovered in the previous day, according to a bulletin.
The daily positivity rate was 0.23 per cent and 22 children were among the newly infected, it said, adding that 46,557 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, a bulletin stated. The toll mounted to 9,116 as a 40-year-old woman died in Cuttack district. These are confirmed as Covid deaths after an audit. Fifty-three other coronavirus patients have died due to comorbidities so far, according to data. The tally rose to 12,86,957, including 12,77,045 recoveries, it added.
With PTI Inputs
