Covishield vaccination intervals revised to 4-8 weeks
The State Health Department has instructed Deputy Directors of Health Services to administer the second dose of Covishield after four to eight weeks of the first dose of the vaccine, based on the recommendations of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.
The Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine is currently administering Covishield to those above 60 years and to those in the 45-59 age group with co-morbidities. There are a total of 529 government vaccination centres and 761 private ones approved by the department.
Based on the Centre’s instructions, the interval between two doses of Covishield has been revisited by the advisory and the second dose should be given at four to eight weeks’ interval instead of the earlier of four to six weeks.
“With an increased interval between the two doses of the vaccine, the effectiveness and immunity response of the vaccine is expected to be better. The response is enhanced if the second dose of Covishield is administered between six to eight weeks, but not later than the stipulated period of 8 weeks,” said Dr T S Selvavinayagam, director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.
So far, a total of 30.3 lakh beneficiaries have been vaccinated. Of this 26,35,626 have been administered Covishield.
Initially, the second dose of the vaccine was being administered after 28 days of the first. The stipulation is that those receiving the vaccine should stick to either Covishield or Covaxin for both the jab. There is no restriction on beneficiaries getting one jab in a particular State and the second in another as far as they stick to the one-vaccine stipulation.
