India on Monday launched the booster vaccination once morest Covid-19 for the benefit of seniors and caregivers, at a time when the epidemic is experiencing a meteoric upsurge attributed to the Omicron variant.
Health workers have started administering a third dose of the vaccine to the elderly, to those with co-morbidities and to front-line health workers.
“We have seen an increase in the number of cases today,” said Sheetal Vaishnav, a doctor participating in the vaccination campaign at a clinic in New Delhi. “We needed to start protecting our people more. We are happy to do so now.”
Nearly 180,000 new contaminations have been recorded in the past 24 hours, almost six times more than last week.
At the height of the pandemic in May, India recorded more than 400,000 new contaminations and 4,000 deaths per day.
In total, nearly 1.5 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered and almost two-thirds of the 1.3 billion people have already received two doses, according to government data. The adolescents over 15 years have access to vaccination since last week.
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