Children above the age of 12 with comorbidities will be given priority for vaccination, said the central government's advisory committee National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NTAGI) chief NK Arora. He added that vaccination of adults will remain the top priority for the government health agencies. 

This comes a week after Zydus Cadilla's COVID-19 vaccine, Zycov-D got emergency use authorisation from India's drug regulator. Zycov-D is India's first COVID-19 vaccine that can also be administered to children aged 12 and above. 

NK Arora said that a portion of the vaccine supply will be set aside for children with comorbidities. He added that the approval process of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for children will start by September-end or October. 

Zycov-D is a three-dose COVID-19 DNA needle-free vaccine approved in India for children. It is the sixth COVID vaccine to be approved in the nation for use and the world’s first plasmid DNA vaccine. 

Zydus Cadila, after getting the approval, said it will manufacture 100-120 million doses of the vaccine annually and started to stockpile the vaccine. The vaccine has an efficacy rate of 66.6 percent, showed data from a late-stage trial conducted on over 28,00 volunteers nationwide. 

The Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI) has said that authorisation to Zycov-D will be given in a phased manner, as after EUA for children aged 12 and above, approval will be given for vaccine to be given to children aged 6-12 years and then for children aged 2-6 years.