Reports say that the Indian government is considering making all adults eligible for Covid-19 vaccine booster doses as infections have started surging in some countries and Indians are facing hard time to travel abroad in the absence of a third dose.
Currently, only the frontline workers and those more than 60 years of age have been allowed to take booster doses in India, irrespective of being free in the government centres or through paid channels in private hospitals.
As many Members of the Parliament have called for the booster doses to be allowed to all adults, the central government is discussing if the booster dose should be provided for free or not.
The Union Health Ministry had recently asked the states and Union Territories to magnify the surveillance measures for the infection, quoting a comeback of the virus in some parts of Asia and Europe.
Covid-19 cases in India currently stand at their lowest ever level in over a year. In the last 24 hours, the country reported 1,549 fresh cases and 31 deaths. The total Covid-19 case count and fatalities have reached the level of 4,30,09,390 and 5,16,510 respectively.
The nationwide Covid-19 recovery rate presently is at 98.74 percent, whereas the daily and weekly positivity rate stands at 0.40 percent.
India has administered more than 181.56 crore doses of the vaccine for Covid-19, as of Monday. The nationwide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16, 2021, with healthcare workers getting vaccinated in the first phase followed by the frontline workers a few weeks later.
The next phase of vaccinations started on the 1st of March last year for people over 60 years of age and also for people over the age of 45 with specified co-morbidities. Vaccination for everyone above 45 years of age began from April 1, 2021. Later on, the government allowed vaccination for everyone above 18 years of age from May 1, 2021.
The Covishield vaccine of the Serum Institute of India (SII) has dominated the Indian vaccination drive. The company said on Monday that it had stopped the production of vaccination shots in December but still manages a stock of around 200 million doses. It further said that it has produced a total of 1.9 billion doses.
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