The government is looking to draw up a policy for COVID 19 booster doses because of the threat of Omicron. The Chairman of the Covid Task Force, Dr NK Arora, said that a policy for additional doses for immunocompromised people will be drawn up in the next two weeks. The policy will be formulated by the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, along with a policy to vaccine the country's 44 crore children.
Arora said that the prioritisation process is in progress and children with comorbidities will be prioritised, according to an interview with NDTV.
Arora said that an additional dose for 94 crore people could not be done overnight. He said there was no shortage of doses in the country. He added that with 12 -- 15 crore still to receive their first dose, the priority is their vaccination.
Arora told the news site that it is important to assess how the vaccines fare against the variant. He said that the country's epidemiological condition needs to be taken into account.
Indian labs are working on the effectiveness of the immune response triggered by Covaxin, Covishield and other home-grown vaccines against the new variant and the extent of virus neutralisation, he said.
There is no confirmation of the origin of the Omicron variant in South Africa. Botswana, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Belgium, Israel, UK, Italy, Australia, Germany, and Denmark have all reported cases of Omicron. There have been no reported cases in India so far.
Experts are trying to find out how deadly Omicron is. A report by the Deutsche Bank shows that even though it is less deadly, it could still outweigh due to a rise in transmissibility resulting in more hospitalisations and deaths.