In a televised address to the nation on Saturday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that vaccination against COVID-19 for children between 15-18 years will start from January 3, while “precaution dose” for healthcare and frontline workers would be administered from January 10.
The decision came due to raising cases linked to the Omicron variant of the virus.
The precaution dose will also be available for citizens above 60 years of age and with comorbidities on the advice of their doctor from January 10 next year as well.
The precaution dose is a third dose of the vaccine for the fully vaccinated, but Modi refrained from using the term “booster dose,” as it is generally referred.
“The gap between the second and the precautionary dose of COVID-19 vaccine is likely to be nine to 12 months with the immunization division and the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) discussing on these lines,” a source said.
More than 61 percent of India’s adult population has received both vaccine doses. Similarly, about 90 percent of the adult population has received the first dose.
With the administration of 32,90,766 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, the cumulative Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the country have exceeded 141.37 crores, as per provisional reports till 7 am.
Source: Medindia
