No medical certificate required for 60-plus to avail precautionary dose; Children can walk-in: Centre

New Delhi, Dec 28: People above 60 years of age with comorbidities do not need to produce or submit any certificate from doctor at the time of administration of precaution dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Drawing attention to misinformation being propagated through various media regarding the requirement of a doctor's certificate to establish co-morbidity at the CVC, the government categorically emphasised that the Union Government has not issued any directions on the said matter and prescriptions/certificates are NOT mandated to be produced at the CVC for administration of the precaution dose.

In a letter to states and UTs, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said personnel to be deployed in election duty in the poll-bound states will be included in the category of frontline workers.

Eligibility of such beneficiaries for the precaution dose will be based on the date of administration of 2nd dose as recorded in the Co-WIN system - completion of nine months i.e. 39 weeks from the date of administration of second dose - Bhushan said.

He informed that CoWIN will send reminder messages to all those eligible for precaution dose, which will be reflected in digital vaccination certificates.

In context of the vaccination of the age group 15-18 yrs, the Union Health Secretary informed the States/UTs that only 'Covaxin' is to be administered in this population category and additional doses of 'Covaxin' will be sent to all States and UTs. Union Government will share the supply schedule of 'Covaxin' with all the States and UTs in the next few days. P

otential beneficiaries can either register themselves on Co-WIN from the 1st of January, 2022 or avail of a walk-in registration when vaccination commences from the 3rd of January. Those with a birth year of 2007 or before will be eligible for vaccination under this category.

All established protocols regarding vaccination are to be followed for the 15-18 yrs age group; beneficiaries are to wait for half-an-hour when they will be monitored for AEFI and will be eligible for the 2nd dose only after 28 days.

States were informed that they have the option to designate some COVID Vaccination Center (CVC)s as dedicated CVC for the 15-18 age group exclusively which can also be reflected on Co-WIN.

Dedicated CVCs would ensure that there is no confusion in administering the vaccines. For CVCs that are intended to serve categories in addition to 15-18 age group, the States were requested to ensure separate queues for the 15-18 age group and separate vaccination teams. States were advised to form two separate vaccination teams at the same CVC, one for 15-18 age groups and other for all adults to avoid confusion in administration of the right vaccines.