Quashing several media reports, NK Arora, chairman, Covid-19 working group of National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) has said that India is not considering any decision to lower the gap between two doses of Covishield.
There is a mandatory 12-week wait for second shots of Covishield, which the government put in place citing scientific studies that showed higher efficacy with a longer interval.
“These reports about the Centre likely to reduce gap for Covishield administration in the private vaccination centres are not correct. There cannot be different rules for different categories of people; that would be discriminatory and science does not work like that. In case of modifications for students needing to travel for studies and other people taking international travel, there was a compelling reason to modify the guidelines,” said Arora.
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The Ministry of Health announced the decision to change the gap from 6-8 weeks to 12-16 weeks on May 13. The decision was made at a time when supplies of the vaccine were falling short of demand and infections were surging across the country.
The National Technical Advisory Group committee advised that “as per the COVID-19 working group recommendation, a dosing interval of a minimum three months between two doses of Covishield vaccine was recommended”.
In multiple statements issued in June, the government defended its decision, saying the interval was increased based on scientific evidence after thorough discussions among members of NTAGI as well as its working group on COVID-19 in two meetings held in May.
Around the same time, the UK cut the gap for jabs for certain populations from 12 to 8 weeks after finding that the newer variants of the novel coronavirus could blunt the effect of vaccines.
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