Bhubaneswar, Jan 3 (PTI) Odisha government on Monday launched the vaccination drive for 15-18 year-olds at 939 special session sites across the state and geared up to tackle Omicron after 12 people having no foreign travel history tested positive for the coronavirus variant in the state.

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Odisha Health and Family Welfare Minister N K Das said the state government has set the target to complete the inoculation drive by the month end, he said.

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Students of class 10, who are appearing for assessment tests between January 5 and 8, can take the vaccine after the examination. Similarly, class 12 students will get vaccinated after January 12, the minister said.

The state has set a target to vaccinate 25.53 lakh teenagers in the 15-18 age group, the director of health service, Bijoy Mohapatra said.

He said of the 23 new cases of Omicron detected in the state on Sunday, 11 have definite foreign travel history. The rest 12 do not have travel history which indicated that some people are getting infected by the new variant.

Das on Monday reviewed the preparedness to deal with cases of Omicron, which shot up from only a single case on December 21 to 37 on January 2 in Odisha.

He assured that the state is fully prepared to deal with Omicron and that there will be no shortage of oxygen in hospitals to treat the affected.

“As many as 1,179 hospital beds have been arranged for children and if required, it will be increased. Of these, 937 are general beds and 242 ICU beds. Arrangement has also been made for 110 ventilators,” the minister said.

Odisha is fully prepared even if the cases of Omicron exceed the number during the peak second wave of the pandemic in 2021 when the state had logged about 10,000 to 12,000 cases daily, he added.

The state on Monday logged 424 new COVID-19 cases on Monday pushing the caseload to 10, 55, 980. Khurda district reported a maximum of 151 cases during the day.

The minister said that he has issued direction to make provision of genome sequencing in places apart from Institute of Life Science in Bhubaneswar.

Mohapatra asked people to avoid crowding to spread the check of Omicron and cited the example of seven people from Keonjhar district contracting the virus in a congregation.

“There are COVID-19 and Omicron virus around us. If we flout the COVID norms and allow congregations, the number of cases will go up. The variant spreads very fast,” he added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)