Puducherry, Jan 3 (IANS): The Public health department of Puducherry will vaccinate children in the 15-18 age group within 15 days of the commencement of the vaccination on Monday.

Chief Minister N. Rangasamy inaugurated the vaccination drive among the children at the Thillayudi Valliyamal Government High School, Kadirkamam.

The State public health department Director Dr. G. Sriramalu while speaking to mediapersons said that after the inauguration, all the 60 students of the government school were inoculated after convincing some parents who had vaccine hesitancy for their children. He said that the health department officials could convince the parents and finally, all the students were vaccinated.

The vaccination drive will be conducted at all the government, government-aided and private schools and the team of health professionals from the Primary Health Centres will take the responsibility to vaccinate children in the 15-18 age group from Tuesday onwards.

The health department also said that 39 Primary health centres have been given the responsibility to inoculate children in the age group of 15-18 from government, government-aided and private schools from Tuesday onwards.

The state health department also said that around 83,000 doses of Covaxin have already arrived at Puducherry and Karaikal while the vaccine for Yanam and Mahe will arrive from Andhra Pradesh and Kerala respectively.

Abdul Nasser, Director, Mahe Institute of Development Studies while speaking to IANS said, "The vaccination drive for children is a major step and with this, we can wade off the dreaded coronavirus from our lives. Hope everyone will inoculate themselves and parents are not vaccine-hesitant."