New Delhi: No registration is required for the ones who are eligible for precautionary doses, Health Ministry has stated. The vaccination process for booster jabs will begin and the schedules will be published in January, the Centre said.
“Schedules will be published on January 8. The online appointment facility will also start by Friday evening. Vaccination with onsite appointment starts on January 10,” the Union Health Ministry was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The precautionary dose will be given to senior citizens with co-morbidities, to healthcare and frontline workers, from January 10.
The eligible population who have taken two doses of COVID-19 vaccine can directly take an appointment or walk-in to any vaccination centre.
Meanwhile, the Centre has already said that the precautionary COVID-19 vaccine dose will be the same vaccine as administered previously in the first two doses.
“Precautionary COVID-19 vaccine dose will be the same vaccine as has been given previously. Those who have received Covaxin will receive Covaxin, those who have received primary two doses of Covishield will receive Covishield,” NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul said.
He further said a tab is being kept on the emerging information, science and data on mixing of vaccines and heterologous approaches.
According to the “Guidelines for COVID-19 vaccination of children between 15-18 years and precaution dose to HCWs, FLWs and 60+ population with comorbidities” issued by the health ministry recently, prioritisation and sequencing of the precaution dose for the beneficiaries would be based on the completion of nine months from the date of administration of the second dose, which is 39 weeks.
They will be able to access vaccination for the precaution dose through their existing CoWIN account, the guidelines that will come into effect from January 3 said. The eligibility for the precaution dose will be based on the date of administration of the second dose as recorded in the CoWIN system, which will send a text message for availing the precaution dose when it becomes due, the guidelines stated.
Meanwhile, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) gave its approval to Bharat Biotech on Tuesday for conducting the phase-3 superiority and booster dose trial for its intranasal Covid vaccine to participants previously vaccinated with Covishield or Covaxin, sources said.
The SEC had, on December 10, said the Serum Institute of India (SII) should submit the local clinical trial data and a proposal, along with a justification, for the booster dose approval.
On November 30, in an application to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), Prakash Kumar Singh, director of government and regulatory affairs at the SII, had sought an approval for Covishield to be used for booster doses, citing an adequate stock of the vaccine in the country and a demand for booster shots due to the emergence of new coronavirus variants.
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