NTAGI To Reduce Gap Between Booster Shot And 2nd COVID Dose

The Central government of India has decided to reduce the gap between booster shots and 2nd dose of the COVID vaccine on Wednesday for people who travel abroad for at least a minimum of 3 months or 90 days. Currently, the time interval between the booster shot and the COVID-19 vaccine is nine months.

On Wednesday, The National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) in its meeting recommended that those who need to travel abroad can take a booster dose before nine months. This decision is taken to relax the booster dose norms for foreign travellers.

PTI reported that ‘this issue was discussed last week and the NTAGI has recommended that those who need to travel abroad can take booster shots before the nine-month waiting period, as required by the country they are travelling to.’

Union Health Ministry is to make an official announcement regarding this issue.

Before this, there was a report revealing that the central government was planning to reduce the gap between the booster shot and the COVID second dose for six months instead of nine months.

Now, those who are above the age of 18 years are eligible to take the booster shot of the COVID vaccine only if they have already taken the 2nd dose of the COVID vaccine.

From January 10, India began to give booster doses of COVID vaccines to health care and frontline workers as well as the people who are 60 years and above.

Also, from March, booster doses were available for all those who are above the age of 60 years as the government removed the comorbidity clause. On April 10, India began to give a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccines to all people over the age of 18 at private immunization centres.