Union Health Ministry on Thursday said the rollout of the third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine or booster shots was not important and the government is focusing on providing complete vaccine cover to the entire adult population in the national inoculation drive.
“Currently, the talk of boosters is not pertinent. The call of the hour is to give two doses to the entire adult population. That is the goal,” said Directorate General of ICMR Dr Balram Bhargava during a health ministry briefing.
The availability of booster shots varies around the world. Britain and Israel have also been giving boosters, despite objections from the World Health Organization that poor countries still don’t have enough for their initial doses.
EU Drugs Regulator European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it will decide on endorsing a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in early October.
In US, more than 400,000 Americans got boosters at drugstores over the weekend, and 1 million more have signed up for them, according to White House officials.
Israel in August began offering a Covid-19 booster to its population including children as young as 12. Announcing the decision, top Israeli health officials said the effectiveness of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine waned six months after administration, making a booster necessary.
Indian studies have shown more than 95 per cent antibodies persist more than a year. Sixty-nine per cent of the country’s adult population has received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine and 25 per cent has taken both doses.
At least 59.66 per cent of the total Covid-19 cases last week were reported from Kerala and the state has over one lakh active cases. Eighteen districts are reporting weekly Covid positivity rate between five to ten per cent and 30 districts are reporting over 10 per cent weekly positivity rate.
(With inputs from agencies)
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