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Kerala, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh have urged the Centre to decide on allowing booster doses of the Covid vaccine diseased amid Omicron concerns. The government in a press briefing has said scientific reasoning for booster vaccine doses for Covid-19 is under examination but the priority is to ensure complete vaccination of the eligible population with both doses. Pune-based Serum Institute of India, which manufactures Covishield, on Thursday sought approval from India's drug regulator for a booster dose, citing adequate stock of the vaccine in the country and a demand for a third shot due to the emergence of new coronavirus variants. “That will quite likely be reasonably effective against future variants too,” the scientist added. “What we should have been doing, and maybe should still be doing, is providing better and better masks, reusable and biodegradable, freely and widely accessible on a large scale, and to build a community-driven programme and campaign for cultural adoption of Covid-appropriate behaviour.” Masking is the need of the hour and there is no Alternative for vaccination," he said in a statement. We can't keep on taking boosters every six months and for every variant of concern that emerges. "Scientific data has proven that masks can reduce Covid-91 transmission by 53 per cent.A booster dose of vaccine, even if it works, is just a temporary fix. Vasant Nagvekar, a consultant on infectious diseases at a Mumbai-based hospital and a member of the Maharashtra government's Covid-19 task force on Thursday, said a booster dose of vaccine, even if it works, is just a temporary fix and the emphasis should instead be on mask use. “Antibody levels in serum will be lower six months down the road than soon after vaccination but that is not the only and adequate evidence of significant lowering of protective immunity which is based on immunological memory,” she added. In principle, of course, immunity will wane with time.
So I would be loath to jump the gun and say anything very definitive about boosters based on these data,” he told PTI.īal agreed that there is no solid data on waning immunity in India. “The duration of immune responses and protection are beginning to show differences, too, in recent studies. Satyajit Rath, from New Delhi's National Institute of Immunology (NII), added that it is not clear yet if boosters are needed for any vaccine worldwide yet. That still confirms that immunity does exist in vaccinated individuals in India,” Bal, guest faculty at Pune's Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, told PTI. “Consistent finding with breakthrough infections is that these episodes are less in severity as compared to unvaccinated. What we should focus on, she said, is fully vaccinating all the eligible population in India and pushing for vaccination of the under 18 age group on a large scale.
Until that is achieved, a uniform policy for second booster, or a third dose, is not advisable,” immunologist Vineeta Bal told PTI, pointing out that large-scale vaccination in India began only in March 2021. “We have a large proportion of our population in the below 18 age-group. The INSACOG is a network of national testing labs set up by the government to monitor genomic variations of Covid-19.