COVID Booster Doses For 18+ From April 10, Only At Private Centres

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced that precautionary booster doses for those who are fully vaccinated and above 18 years of age will start on April 10, 2022. It also added that this precautionary dose drive will only be held at private vaccination centres and beneficiaries will have to pay to avail the third dose.

Currently, the government is providing vaccine doses at government centres for those who want to avail the prescribed two doses to be considered fully vaccinated. Along with this, the government is also giving precautionary doses for health workers, frontline workers, and citizens above the age of 60.

India has approved precautionary booster doses for the adult population at large three months after it initiated it for the earlier category. The booster shot will have to be homologous with the earlier shots. This means that citizens who received two doses of Covishield, Covaxin or Sputnik, will have to take the same booster. The government is not keen on permitting the mixing of doses.

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As both the vaccines have received conditional market approval, Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech have decided to reduce their prices. Citizens paid ₹780 for Covishield, ₹1145 for Sputnik, and ₹1200 for Covaxin at private centres.

Both the vaccines will now be available at ₹225 per dose at the private centres. All the adults between 18-59 willing to take the vaccine will have to shell out money for the same.

As the definition of precautionary dose stays unaltered, that is taking the same vaccine, this means Corbevax will be limited to be given to children between the ages of 12-14. Biological E which manufactured the vaccine along with the makers based in Houston, USA were hoping that the vaccine could be provided as a booster dose across the country.

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The government is yet to release guidelines about how the process will be undertaken. Provisions will most likely be made on CoWin for people to register for the specific dose. Only those who received both doses nine months ago are eligible to take the booster dose.

Earlier, on CoWin, many people complained that their phone number was used to register several other people for doses. According to the website, one person can register for four people on one given number. However, people said that their numbers were misused.

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