Covid-19 booster dose for all above 18 years at private hospitals from April 10
New Delhi, April 8 : The Centre on Friday announced that Covid-19 booster doses will now be available for everyone above 18 years of age from April 10, at private hospitals. Meanwhile, the ongoing free vaccination programme through government vaccination centres for first and second doses as well as the precaution dose would continue.
All those who are aged 18 or above and have completed nine months after the administration of the second dose, would be eligible for the booster dose. This facility would be available in all private vaccination centres from Sunday.
So far, more than 2.4 crore precaution doses have also been administered to healthcare workers, frontline workers and 60+ population group.
New coronavirus variant XE around 10% more transmissible than other Omicron mutations
About 96% of all 15+ population in the country have received at least one Covid vaccine dose, while about 83% of 15+ population has received both doses.
On April 6, Mumbai’s civic body Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) claimed that a case of the new XE variant of coronavirus has been detected in the city. However, sources close to the Union Health Ministry said the genome sequencing of the patient’s sample does not indicate the presence of the XE variant.
As per the BMC, it is the first case of XE variant but the sample will be sent to the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) for further analysis to confirm the new variant.
Although Covid vaccination reduces the severity of the infection, different reports have suggested that vaccination becomes less effective over time, especially in people aged 65 years and above. With the emergence of the highly contagious Omicron variant of coronavirus in China and other parts of the world, fully vaccinated people are at risk of getting infected again.
-The India Today
