9-Month Gap for Booster Dose Rule Relaxed for Those Travelling Abroad

No fresh registrations are required for the dose and this new facility will be available soon on the CoWIN portal.

The image is representational.

(Photo: PTI)

The central government on Thursday, 12 May, relaxed guidelines around the COVID-19 precaution dose, letting those who will be travelling take the vaccine before the stipulated waiting period of nine months as required by the destination nation.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya took to Twitter on Thursday to announce, "Indian citizens and students travelling overseas can now take the precaution dose as required by the guidelines of the destination country."

"This new facility will be available soon on the CoWIN portal," he added.

The norms were relaxed on the recommendations made by The National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, NTAGI, reported news agency PTI.

An individual was eligible for the booster shot, that had become available from April, after nine months of the second vaccination dose.

Booster Background

Anyone above the age of 18 is eligible for the booster dose that are available at various private centres.

The precaution dose needs to be of the same vaccine which has been used for the administration of the first and the second dose, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) had instructed.

With this, no fresh registrations are required for the dose, as all due beneficiaries are already registered on the CoWIN application and website.

The Serum Institute of India (SII) in April had announced their decision to revise the price of their COVID-19 vaccine Covishield for private hospitals from Rs 600 to Rs 225 per dose, after which Bharat Biotech, which manufactures Covaxin, also slashed its pricing to Rs 225 from Rs 1,200.

Meanwhile, India recorded an uptick in COVID-19 cases with 2,897 new infections and 24 deaths due to the disease in the past 24 hours as on Wednesday.

As per the MoHFW health bulletin, the active caseload stood at 19,067, while the positivity rate was at 0.05 percent.

(With inputs from PTI.)