In Mumbai, online bookings for coronavirus vaccination of children between 15 and 18 years of age, which will start from Monday, faced technical glitches, The Indian Express reported. Many persons were unable to book a slot as the Centre failed to activate the online option on the Co-WIN portal for the city.

“The probable beneficiaries could register on the portal but couldn’t book a slot due to a technical issue,” said Suresh Kakani, the additional commissioner of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. “As the portal is maintained by the Centre, we have no role to play in it.”

In other districts of the country, the online slot booking option was active. However, applicants had to try multiple times due to slow servers.

Till 7 pm on Sunday, 6,01,167 people between 15 and 18 years of age across India had registered on the Co-WIN portal.

On December 27, the Centre had said that children between 15 and 18 years of age can self-register for vaccination through an existing account on the Co-Win platform. They can also create a new account through a unique mobile number.

People in this age group can also be registered on site by the verifier or the person administering the vaccine. They can book appointments online as well as at the vaccination centre.

Currently, Covaxin is the only available vaccine that has received emergency use listing from the Drugs Controller General of India for children.

Vaccination preparedness in Mumbai

BMC Additional Commissioner Kakani said beneficiaries in Mumbai, who were unable to book a slot due to technical glitch on the Co-Win portal, can still get vaccinated at the centres, The Indian Express reported.

“We will mainly focus on offline vaccination so that any children can walk into the centres and get themselves vaccinated,” he added. “This always simplifies the process and yields better results.”

There are approximately nine lakh children eligible for the vaccine in Mumbai. There are nine jumbo centres in the city that have the capacity to vaccinate 1,500 children everyday.

In Maharashtra, the public health department has set up 650 centres to vaccinate 60.63 lakh eligible children.

“These centres will only provide Covaxin doses for children,” said state immunisation officer Sachin Desai. “At centres where both adults and children can get vaccinated, we will keep separate queues for Covaxin and Covishield to avoid any mix-up of the vials.”

Vaccination preparedness in Goa

The Goa government on Sunday said that it aims to vaccinate all 72,000 children in the 15-18 age group with the first dose in the next four days, PTI reported.

“Goa has already received 72,000 doses to vaccinate the children between the age group of 15 to 18 years, which would be administered within 3-4 days from January 3 onwards,” Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane said.

He added that medical professionals’ teams will visit schools if needed.