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- Omicron Variant | COVID 19 Vaccine Booster Dose New Policy Soon Amid Omicron Coronavirus Variant
New Delhi2 minutes ago
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The Omicron variant of Corona is also expected to reach India. Meanwhile, Dr. NK Arora, chairman of the country’s Kovid Task Force, has said that the government is going to bring a new policy on additional doses of vaccine for critical patients and people with weak immunity.
This policy will be prepared by the National Technical Advisory Group (NTAG) within the next two weeks. NTAG is also going to bring a new policy for the vaccination of 44 crore children of the country.
Dr. Arora said- Many labs of the country are currently testing the efficacy on new variants of the vaccine present in India. This may take about 2 weeks. This will show the extent to which Covaxin, Covishield and other vaccines are capable of fighting the virus.
Booster dose to the elderly in many countries
In countries like the US, UK and Israel, booster doses are already being given to people in the high risk category.
According to NDTV, when asked about the booster dose for the elderly, Dr. Arora said – After the new variant of Corona came to the fore, booster doses are being given to the elderly in many countries. These include countries like America, Britain and Israel. Booster means we will need 94 crore more doses which cannot be prepared in one night. However, there is no shortage of vaccine in the country.
Dr. Arora said- 12 to 15 crore people in the country have not received a single dose of the vaccine and 30 crore people have not received the second dose. There is a need to accelerate vaccination in the country. This should be done on priority basis.
There is no Omicron case in the country
So far, not a single case of Omicron has been reported in India. Two South African nationals who arrived in Bengaluru earlier this month were found to be Corona positive. One of them has been found infected with the Delta strain. Karnataka Health Minister Dr. K Sudhakar has said that the test samples have been sent to the labs for genome sequencing. He said that the state government is very cautious about the Omicron strain.
Dr Samiran Panda, Head of Epidemiology at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has expressed the possibility of Omicron already being present in India. Panda had said that the information about this variant will be revealed only through the test.