Panaji: The Goa government will vaccinate, with first dose, all the 72,000 children between the age of 15-18 years in next three-four days, State Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said on Sunday.
After attending the meeting of Health Ministers from all the states on Sunday, which was chaired by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandiya, Rane told reporters that a complete review of the preparations to tackle COVID-19 was taken during the meeting.
Rane said that the state has already received 72,000 doses to vaccinate the children between age group of 15 to 18 years, which would be administered within 3-4 days from January 03 onwards.
He said that the teams of medical professionals are ready to vaccinate the children, for which, if required, they will also visit the schools.
The Health Minister said that Goa has put in all the required protocols in place to ensure that “the COVID-19 curve flattens and is not allowed to rise further.” He said that stringent checking is done at the state borders while all the incoming people are checked for COVID-19infection.
Rane said that a cruise ship, which was carrying 2,000 passengers, was not allowed to dock at state’s Port on Sunday. He stated that the cruise ship operators have been asked to conduct COVID-19 test on all the passengers through Vasco-based Salgaonkar Medical Research Centre (SMRC) hospital before allowing them to alight from the vessel.
Rane said that the state would install ‘genome sequencing machine’ in next 15 days to avoid the delay in testing the samples suspected for Omicron. He said that currently the samples are sent to National Institute of Virology in Pune, the results of which are received delayed due to load on the testing labouratory.
He said that the Task Force led by chief minister Pramod Sawant will be meeting on Monday, January 03, where certain measures are likely to be announced to curb the spread.
