Reduce vaccine gap, allow booster dose: Harish Rao to Centre

Hyderabad: Health Minister T Harish Rao has urged Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Mansukh Mandaviya to reduce the period between the two doses of Covishield vaccine and allow booster doses to be administered to frontline workers, healthcare workers and high-risk groups in Telangana. Harish Rao, in a letter to the Union Minister […]

Hyderabad: Health Minister T Harish Rao has urged Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Mansukh Mandaviya to reduce the period between the two doses of Covishield vaccine and allow booster doses to be administered to frontline workers, healthcare workers and high-risk groups in Telangana.

Harish Rao, in a letter to the Union Minister said at present the gap between two doses of Covishield was 12 weeks and it must be reduced to at least 4 to 6 weeks to improve coverage of second dose of the vaccine. The present gap of 12 weeks between two doses of Covishield was causing difficulty in covering people with second dose. “This difficulty is more pronounced in case of inter-State and intra-State migrant workers and persons from high-risk groups etc, as they tend to move out of the areas in which they received the first dose. Since the line lists on COWIN portal for second dose are generated according to the Covid Vaccination Centre (CVC) where the first dose was administered, it is difficult to track the persons for second dose in their present locations,” he said.

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On booster doses, Harish said, “A period of 8 to 10 months has lapsed since administration of second dose of Covid vaccines to healthcare workers, frontline workers and persons from the high risk groups. Due to passage of time and emergence of new variants, Government of India may consider providing booster dose, at least for the above-mentioned categories.”

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