New Delhi:
The Ministry of Health Thursday informed that durability of immunity post COVID-19 infection persists for about nine months. The statement comes amid the discussion over precaution dose, or booster dose, of COVID-19 vaccine.
The Centre will begin administering booster dose to medical professionals, frontline health staff and senior citizens with comorbidities from January 10, 2022. The ministry said elderly people are however expected to obtain the advice of their doctor before deciding to avail of precaution dose.
Precautionary dose was to mitigate severity of COVID-19 infection, hospitalisations and deaths, ICMR Director-General Dr Balram Bhargava said on Thursday.
At the health ministry weekly briefing, Dr Bhargava said all COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent infection and are primarily disease-modifying.
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Dr Bhargava also emphasised that the use of masks before and after vaccination is a “must” and mass gatherings should be avoided. “The treatment guidelines for the earlier and the currently circulating strains of coronavirus remain the same. Home isolation remains an important pillar,” he added.
The health ministry said the Centre will send SMS reminders to eligible senior citizens for taking precautionary dose that begins from January 10. Dr Bhargava said debate was still on over whether a homologous vaccine or mixed vaccine will be used for the precaution dose, and a decision on the same will be made before January 10.
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Dr Bhargava said COVID-19 vaccines manufactured in India, Israel, US, Europe, UK or China, were primarily disease-modifying and did not prevent infection, he added.
The ICMR DG highlighted that vaccination was a must in any scenario along with COVID-19 appropriate behaviour. He also said that everyone, vaccinated or not, must avoid mass gatherings as the Omicron variant was three times more transmissible than the highly infectious Delta variant.
The Health Ministry on Thursday morning informed that India reported 13,154 new COVID-19 cases and 268 deaths in the last 24 hours. With this, the country’s COVID-19 tally has risen to 34,822,040 while the death toll has mounted to 4,80,860.
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