COVID-19 vaccination for people above 18 begins in Delhi

New Delhi, May 03: The third and largest phase of the COVID-19 vaccination drive to inoculate people in the 18-45 age group began here Monday morning.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said 301 centres have been established in 76 schools in the city. He visited a vaccination centre in West Vinod Nagar.

"Mass vaccination for youth of Delhi has begun in Delhi. We have established 301 centers in 76 schools. Our target is to establish 3,000 such centers in 300 schools, subjected (sic) to the availability of vaccine," he said in a tweet.

Around 90 lakh people are eligible for the jabs under this category in Delhi.

The government set up the vaccination centres in schools to accommodate the large number of beneficiaries in this phase, an official said.

Till now, vaccines were being given to those aged above 45 at around 500 centres in the national capital.

Pre-registration is mandatory for vaccination in the 18-45 age group, and there will be no walk-ins under this category for now, the official said.

While the city''s Max Hospital started vaccinating people in the 18-45 age group at limited centres from Saturday, Fortis Healthcare began the exercise on Sunday.

The Delhi government has placed orders for 1.34 crore vaccine doses, which will be delivered over the next three months.

Of these, 67 lakh doses are of Covishield vaccine, which are being procured from the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, officials said.

They had earlier said the first tranche of three lakh doses would reach Delhi in the first week of May.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had on Thursday said a plan has been formulated to vaccinate all adults against the coronavirus within the next three months.

He had then said that everybody aged above 18 would be administered COVID-19 vaccines free of cost in Delhi.