Reduce interval between second and precautionary dose: Harish Rao to centre

Hyderabad: Telangana Health Minister T Harish Rao has requested Union Minister of health Mansukh Mandaviya to reduce the interval between the second dose and the precautionary (booster) dose from 9 to 6 months.

"Data of Covid infections and hospitalizations has beyond doubt proved that vaccines are highly effective and are preventing severe morbidity, hospitalization, and mortality. Based on the experience of booster dose policies of countries like USA & UK, it is requested to kindly consider decreasing the interval between second dose and precautionary dose from 9 months to 6 months," Harish Rao said in a letter to Mansukh Mandaviya.

He has also requested the union minister to examine the feasibility of further decreasing the interval between the second dose and precautionary dose to 3 months for all health care workers. Also asked to include all citizens above 60 years of age for the precautionary dose irrespective of Comorbidities and to consider booster dose to all citizens above 18 years of age. "This will enable us to protect the population from the severe morbidity and mortality associated with Covid- 19 infection,' Harish Rao added.

Earlier, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday said he will write to the Centre to reduce the gap for precautionary doses from nine to six months.

On December 3, 2021, Harish Rao has asked the Central government to reduce the interval between the two doses of Covishield to four-six weeks.

"The present guidelines specify a gap of 12 weeks between two doses of Covishield vaccine. Since the gap between the two doses is quite long, it often causes difficulty in administering the second dose. This difficulty is more pronounced in case of inter-state and intra-state migrant workers and persons from high-risk groups as they frequently tend to move out of the areas in which they received the first dose," Rao had said.

He added that since the lists on CoWIN portal for the second dose are generated according to the COVID vaccination centers where the first dose was received, it is difficult to track the persons for the second dose in their present locations. Further, the long gap between the doses also leads to people neglecting to take the second dose.