Insight Bureau: From January 10, India has started administering the precautionary dose of the vaccine to healthcare workers, frontline workers and those above 60 years of age with comorbidities.
Personnel deployed for election duty in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, and Goa have also been designated as frontline workers.
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, in a tweet on Sunday, said reminder SMSes have been sent to over one crore healthcare and frontline workers and senior citizens for their precaution dose.
An estimated 1.05 crore healthcare and 1.9 crore frontline workers, and 2.75 crore comorbid people in the 60 plus age group would be administered the precaution dose according to schedule, Health Ministry sources said.
There would be no mix-and-match of vaccines for the precaution dose. The beneficiaries would be given the same vaccine as their previous two jabs. According to guidelines issued by the Union Health Ministry, the gap between the date of administering the second dose of vaccine and the precaution dose would be nine months ( 39 weeks).
India saw a single-day rise of 1,79,723 new coronavirus cases, raising the tally to 3.57 crore, which included 4,075 cases of Omicron variant reported across 27 states and union territories. The country reported 146 deaths linked to the virus.
