Allow booster shots, lower vaccine age eligibility to 15: Aaditya Thackeray 's 3 suggestions to Centre

Mumbai, Dec 07: Amid rising Omicron cases, Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray on Tuesday wrote to Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya listing three suggestions regarding Covid-19 vaccination.

The Shiv Sena leader, in a letter, asked the Centre to allow booster shots, lower the vaccine age and reduce the gap between two doses of vaccines citing Omicron threat.

Thackeray asked Mandaviya to allow "all those frontline workers and healthcare workers, who have received both their doses early in the year, a third shot at their studied desire."

"India's vaccination drive in the past few months has progressed by leaps and bounds, attempting to cover all citizens with a shield of protection from COVID-19. While most of our country's life and livelihood is now back to almost normal the threat of omicron looms on people", his letter read.

"In my conversations with various doctors, it seems that it may be ok to reduce the minimum age of vaccination to 15." He said this will "enable us to cover secondary schools and junior colleges with vaccine protection."

Thackeray also recommended that the dose gap be reduced for wider coverage. "If the gap between two doses is reduced to four weeks, just like for those applying to work or study abroad, the city will cover 100% of its population with the second dose by mid-January 2022, without asking for more vaccines or altering its delivery schedule," he wrote.

Read his full letter here: