NEW DELHI: The country is set to roll out precautionary Covid-19 vaccine for healthcare, frontline workers and 60-plus population but it is still to decide whether the third doses administered will be the same one or of a different vaccine.
Balram Bhargava, director general of the ICMR, in a press briefing on Covid-19 response by the Union health ministry, on Thursday, said that a series of meetings are happening to deliberate on the issue and to examine the locally available data before a final decision is taken.
Senior members of the Covid working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization have been discussing, among other things, the number of people eligible for the third Covid jab, options of vaccines available, new vaccines and whether it will be the same or different vaccines.
"We are also examining data and will come up with clear-cut recommendations on precautionary doses before January 10," said Bhargava, adding that the decision will also involve expert advice from the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 and the Drug Controller General of India.
On December 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that from January 10, healthcare and frontline workers and those above 60, on their doctors' advice, can avail "precaution doses".
Later, in a set of guidelines, the Union health ministry clarified that only those in the above category of people, who have completed 39 weeks since their full vaccination, will be eligible.
There was, however, no clarity on whether the government is going to adopt mixing of Covid-19 vaccines, as is happening in some countries such as the UK, for booster doses or whether it will be the same vaccine.
In the country so far, there is limited data available on the immunogenicity and safety derived from the mixing of Covid-19 vaccine doses.
In August this year, the DCGI had approved a proposal by the Christian Medical College, Vellore to study the mixing of Covid vaccines Covaxin and Covishield in 300 volunteers but its results are yet to come out.
Just before this development, the ICMR had released a study saying that mixing of the two vaccines -- Covaxin and Covishield -- may be eliciting stronger immune responses than two doses of either of the vaccines alone.
The study, by Pune-based National Institute of Virology under the ICMR, suggested that immunisation with a combination of Covishield and Covaxin was safe and provides better immunity against Covid virus variants.
This research was conducted on 98 people, including 18 who had inadvertently received Covaxin, after the first dose of Covishield in Uttar Pradesh.