Will begin vax jabs for 18-45 as SII offers more doses: Rajasthan (Lead)

Jaipur, April 30 (IANS) Hours after announcing that Rajasthan would curtail Phase 3 of the Covid vaccination drive to those aged 35-45 due to insufficient vaccine doses, state Health Minister Raghu Sharma on Friday said that inoculation of all aged 18-45 years would begin from May 1."Serum Institute of India, by late Friday evening, has announced to provide 5.44 lakh vaccines in this month... which till afternoon was limited to 3 lakh doses. Hence now, people under 18-45 years of age group will be vaccinated. Meanwhile, we are continuously asking the Centre to provide more vaccine doses as people in the 18-45 age group account for 3.25 crore people," he saidThe vaccination will take place at 11 districts -- Jaipur, Jodhpur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Udaipur, Alwar, Dholpur, Bhilwara, Kota, Sikar and Pali -- where corona infection is the highest, he added.Sharma had earlier on Friday said that those aged 35-45 years will be administered Covid vaccines from May 1 at 11 district headquarters under Phase 3 of the vaccination drive, as the SII had offered to provide 3 lakh vaccine (Covishield) doses.The vaccination drive will start in other districts when SII provides more doses in the next few days, he had said.Full vaccination for the 18-45 years age group will not be started from May 1.As vaccines are unavailable at present hour, vaccination of complete population under 18-45 is not possible and we have decided to vaccinate people from 35-45 years of age, Sharma had said.
--IANS arc/vd