Precaution doses for Covid warriors, elderly from January 10: All you need to know

New Delhi, Dec 26: In a surprise announcement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said covis vaccination for the children in the age group of 15-18 years from January 3. He also announced 'precaution dose' for covid warriors amid highly infectious, fast-spreading Omicron variant scare.

Who will be given precaution dose?

The third covid vaccine in India is called called 'precaution dose' not booster dose. As per Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement, healthcare and frontline workers will get precaution dose from 10th January 2022, Monday. This has been done in the light of the amount of time that the frontline workers and health care workers spend in the service of Covid patients.

The decision of precaution dose will strengthen confidence of healthcare and frontline workers.

The Prime Minister also announced that option of precaution dose will be available for senior citizens above 60 years of age with co-morbidities on the advice of their doctors from 10th January, 2022.

However, thse who need precaution dose would be required to furnish medical certificate to take third dose.

"Eligible elderly would require a medical certificate to prove their comorbidity. We will follow the same list of comorbidities that was released during the launch of vaccination drive for people between 45 to 59 years of age," Dr RS Sharma, chief executive officer at National Health Authority who also heads the functioning of CoWIN platform, told News18.com.

The eligibility to take the precaution shot also depends on 20 specified comorbidities, including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, sickle cell disease, stem cell transplant, kidney disease or on dialysis, cirrhosis,and current prolonged use of steroids or immunosuppressant drugs.

According to government data, there are 3 crore health and frontline workers in India. Of which, 1.03 crore healthcare workers have taken the first dose.

96.78 lakh of them are fully vaccinated and would be the first claimants to a booster dose. While1.68 crore frontline workers are eligible for precaution dose from January 10.

More than 61 per cent of India's adult population has received both doses of the vaccine. Similarly, about 90 per cent of the adult population has received the first dose.

That means nearly 9.24 crore individuals in the 60-plus population are fully vaccinated and are eligible for the third dose.

Precaution dose gap

A PTI report said that the gap between the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine and the third, which is being called a "precaution dose", is likely to be nine to 12 months.

The nitty-gritty of the gaps for the vaccines currently being used in India's inoculation programme - Covishield and Covaxin - is being worked out, and a final decision over this will be taken soon, an official told PTI.

Which vaccine will be given as booster dose?

The precaution dose denotes a third dose of the vaccine for the fully vaccinated but Modi refrained from using the term booster dose. Hence, the options are wide open and government is likely to come up with a clear instruction on this. This could an additional dose or a new vaccine.