Booster dose necessary but vaccinating all first should be priority: AIIMS Director

New Delhi: There is enough evidence to ascertain that a booster dose of Covid-19 vaccines rolled out under national immunisation program is required, adding that achieving full immunisation of eligible population should be the priority, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences told UNI during a session on Wednesday.

"Enough data to show that the antibodies developed through vaccines wane out after a considerable duration. There is a need for booster doses. However, our priority should be to vaccinate all first," he said.

The top doctor specified that the country does not have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses currently for all eligible individuals which call for vaccinating dose who are more vulnerable and left out from the immunisation ambit.

"A large number of healthcare workers are still not vaccinated. The are many among the vulnerable and high-risk groups who haven't received the vaccines yet. Rather than giving boosters to those who have already been immunized, the focus should remain on vaccinating to those who are not covered so far," he added.

Speaking on the onset and ferociousness of the third Covid-19 wave which is being predicted to have a larger impact than the second one, Guleria, who is also a member of the National Covid-19 task force, assumed that the third wave is unlikely to hit as hard as the devastating second wave of Covid-19.

"Considering the rising pace vaccination in the country and the latest serosurvey data which shows more than 60 per cent of individuals have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, there are high chances that we would not face a large third wave," he said during the knowledge sharing session on Covid-19 therapies organised virtually by IHW council.

Earlier, Dr NK Arora, chairperson, Covid-19 working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) had told UNI India will wait till the goal of full immunization among the target population is achieved.

“Our primary focus is to provide immunization with full doses of the vaccines approved here. We are closely monitoring the developments happening around authorization of booster doses in other countries but our primary goal remains to vaccinate all the adults," he had said.

The US has authorized the third shot of vaccines approved there for certain immune-compromised individuals. The country has allowed the third dose of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna coronavirus vaccines for certain people who are diagnosed with conditions that are considered to have an equivalent level of immunocompromise.

In India, the makers of AstraZeneca-Covishield stated a few days ago that after the initial two doses of Covishield, there should be a third dose preferably six months after the second shot of their Covid-19 vaccine.

Cyrus Poonawalla, Chairman of Serum Institute of India (SII) has called for the third dose of Covishield, which his company manufactures in India, as he claimed that the immune response elicited by the vaccine reduces after six months of its intake. (UNI)