Telangana for reducing interval between second, precautionary doses

Hyderabad, Jan 18: The Telangana government has urged the Centre to reduce the interval between the second and the precautionary dose from the current nine months to six months.

It also suggested that for healthcare workers, the interval between the second dose and the precautionary dose be reduced further to three months only.

Telangana Health Minister T. Harish Rao on Tuesday wrote a letter to Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in this regard.

Rao urged the Central minister to consider the requests which he said were based on the experience of booster dose policies of countries like the US and the UK.

The state minister also urged Mandaviya to administer precautionary dose to all citizens above 60 years of age irrespective of co-morbidities. Currently, senior citizens with co-morbidities are being given the precautionary dose.

The Central minister was also urged to consider booster dose to all the citizens above 18 years of age.

"This will enable us to protect the population from the severe morbidity and mortality associated with Covid-19 infection," Harish Rao wrote.

The state minister mentioned that the vaccination has aided in reducing the overall infections and severity of infection. The state has initiated precautionary dose to the risk groups as per the guidelines of the Union government.

The state on January 10 started administering precautionary dose to healthcare workers, frontline workers and citizens above 60 years of age with co-morbidities.

As on January 17, the state administered precautionary doses to 1,46,075 people. According to director of public health, there are more than 12.70 lakh beneficiaries in these categories who are yet to take precautionary doses.