India starts precautionary dose for population above 60 with comorbidities — All you need to know

• India will start administering the third dose or the precautionary dose of COVID-19 vaccine to all health workers and citizens above 60 years suffering from comorbidities from today.
• The health ministry also said that those who received their second shot nine months ago are only eligible.
• Those eligible for the third dose can directly take an appointment or walk into any vaccination centre nearby and can take the dose.

India, as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month, will start inoculating the third dose or the precautionary dose of COVID-19 vaccine to all health workers and citizens above 60 years suffering from comorbidities from today, January 10, onwards.

Citizens above 60 years of age who are suffering from diabetes,hypertension, and other chronic ailments are directly eligible to get their third vaccine shot.

However, the health ministry also said that those who received their second shot nine months ago are only eligible i.e., the recipient must have completed nine months after getting the second vaccine to become eligible for the third one.

The health ministry also announced that the third dose or the precautionary dose is the same as the second and the first dose. Those who got Covaxin will get Covaxin only and those who got Covishield will get Covishield only as their third dose.

Those eligible for the third dose can directly take an appointment or walk into any vaccination centre nearby and can take the dose.

The health ministry further said that the CoWin system will also send a reminder SMS to all eligible recipients. “Reminder SMS have been pushed to more than 1 crore beneficiaries at vaccination centres on Monday,” said an official in a statement.

Here’s how you can register for your third dose on the CoWin website —

As mentioned above, the eligible citizens need not to take any appointment for the third dose and can directly book a slot or walk-in at any vaccination centre.

However, to save your time and for your convenience you can book your slot on the CoWin website.

1. Open the CoWin website on any smart device, scroll down a little, you will see a link under ‘Get your precaution dose’, click on that.
   
2. Then enter your registered mobile number and enter the one-time password (OTP).
   
3. Then, click on ‘schedule appointment’, you can book your slot according to your convenient time and date.
   

The reason behind administering the third dose is to strengthen the immune system of the people. “All COVID vaccines, whether they are from India, Israel, US, Europe, UK, or China, are primarily disease-modifying. They don't prevent infection. The precautionary dose is primarily to mitigate the severity of infection, hospitalisation, and death," said Dr Balram Bhargava, director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in a statement.

India administered 29,60,975 COVID-19 vaccine doses in the last one day, taking the total tally to 1.51 billion doses so far.

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