No scientific evidence to support need for booster vaccine dose: ICMR chief
New Delhi: There is no scientific evidence so far to support the need for a booster vaccine dose against COVID-19, ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said on Monday underlining the completion of second dose for India's adult population is the priority for the government for now.
According to sources, the booster dose issue is likely to be discussed in the next meeting of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation in India (NTAGI).
"Administering the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine to all adult population and ensuring that not only India but the entire world gets vaccinated is the priority of the government for now.
"More so, there is no scientific evidence so far to support the need for a booster vaccine dose against COVID-19," Bhargava said.
On the probability of administering a booster dose, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya recently said that adequate stocks are available and the aim is to complete the vaccination of the target population with two doses. After that, a decision on booster dose would be taken based on expert recommendation, he had said.
"The government cannot take a direct decision in such a matter. When the Indian Council of Medical Research and expert team will say that a booster dose should be given, we will consider it then," he had said, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always depended on expert opinion, be it vaccine research, manufacturing or approval.
According to officials, around 82 per cent of the eligible population in India have received the first dose of the vaccine while around 43 per cent have been fully inoculated.
The total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has exceeded 116.87 crore, according to provisional reports till 7 am.
India recorded 8,488 new Coronavirus infections, the lowest in 538 days, taking the country's total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,45,18,901 out of which 3,39,34,547 people have recuperated from the disease, while the active cases declined to 1,18,443, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.
The death toll climbed to 4,65,911 with 249 fresh fatalities that include include 196 from Kerala and 17 from Maharashtra, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.35 per cent, according to the data updated at 8 am.
The daily rise in new Coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 45 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 148 consecutive days now.
The active cases comprise 0.34 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.31 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.
A decrease of 4,271 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.08 per cent. It has been less than two per cent for last 49 days. The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 0.93 per cent. It has been below two per cent for the last 59 days, according to the ministry.
