India widens Covid-19 vaccine booster campaign to over 18s

Bloomberg: India widened access to Covid-19 vaccine booster shots to all adults as some countries experience fresh infection flare ups and after the new omicron variant XE was detected in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai.

Those over the age of 18 with a nine-month gap since their second shot will be eligible from April 10 for a “precaution dose” — the federal government’s term for boosters — in paid for private facilities, India’s health ministry said in a statement.

Despite India’s health system being ravaged by one of the world’s most brutal Covid waves last year, the government initially resisted a wide-scale booster campaign even as it began to stock abundant vaccine supplies toward the end of 2021. There has been a heated domestic debate on their effectiveness and Indian authorities, to begin with, only authorized the administration of additional shots to the over 60s with co-morbidities and front-line health workers in January during a short-lived omicron wave.

Since then infection rates have dropped to lows last seen at the start of the pandemic, with just over 1,000 reported cases a day. India’s health ministry said about 96% of the over 15s have received at least one vaccine dose, while 83% have had two.

Movement and mask wearing restrictions across India have largely been lifted in recent weeks, though there has been some concern recently over the detection of the highly-transmissible XE variant in an asymptomatic traveler from South Africa in Mumbai, according to the city’s authorities.