No Need for 3rd Dose Before 9 Months of 2nd Vaccine, Health Officials Tell Parliamentary Panel
News 18As countries rush to offer booster doses to their citizens amid the spread of the Omicron variant, India may wait and watch before taking the final call. Sources told CNN-News18 that at a meeting of a department-related standing committee for health and family welfare, Indian Council of Medical Research chief Dr Balram Bhargava said the central government is not calling it the ‘booster dose’ and what it should be called is the ‘third dose’. The comments came at a meeting of a department-related standing committee for health and family welfare, led by professor Ramgopal Yadav, which discussed crucial issues around the health of citizens and the challenges faced by them due to the new Covid-19 variant Omicron. The meeting was organised “to hear the views of secretaries, department of health and family welfare and department of health research” on the “challenges posed by the omicron variant of Covid-19, the strategy adopted and the measures taken to combat the same”, as part of examination of the subject, ‘Vaccine Development, Distribution Management and Mitigation of Pandemic COVID 19’. Sources told CNN-News18 that members were conveyed by officials of the health ministry that additional research and data is awaited before India can start administering vaccine to children.