3rd Dose Of Vaccine: Is It Really Required?

Government of India's commitment to the vaccination program has been unwavering and proactive from the beginning, from strengthening Research and Development capacity, to encouraging and enabling manufacturing and vaccinating each and every adult Indian safely, as fast as possible.

Keeping in view the recent global surge of COVID-19 cases, detection of Omicron variant which has been categorized as a Variant of Concern (VOC), scientific evidence, global practices and the inputs/suggestions of ‘COVID-19 Working Group of National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI)’ as well as of ‘Standing Technical Scientific Committee(STSC)’ of NTAGI it has now been decided to further refine the scientific prioritization & coverage of COVID-19 vaccination  for all persons aged 60 years and above. An additional dose is administered to people with moderately to severely compromised immune systems. This additional dose is intended to improve immunocompromised people’s response to their initial vaccine series.

All persons aged 60 years and above with comorbidities who have received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine, will on Doctor’s advice be provided with a precaution dose from 10th January, 2022. The prioritization and sequencing of this precaution dose would be based on the completion of 9 months i.e. 39 weeks from the date of administration of the second dose.

The protection offered by the FDA-approved and authorized vaccines is very powerful, but it starts to weaken after 5 months of taking double doses of vaccines. A booster dose of vaccine is required because this shot extends the protection, even against the delta and omicron variants.

Recent data collected show that unvaccinated people are 14 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than those who are vaccinated. Yet, while all the vaccines are still highly effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalization and death, the number of infections in vaccinated people, particularly those over age 65, began to concern researchers.

The 3rd dose recommendations was focused on adults who have underlying health conditions or who work in high-risk professions but waning immunity combined with the emergence of the highly contagious OMICRON variant of the coronavirus has led to more infections and the need for booster shots and after reviewing the data and a somewhat contentious debate over whether 3rd doses are necessary for everyone regardless of age or underlying medical conditions, experts have come to agree that all adults over age 18 should consider getting a booster dose of the vaccine for COVID-19 based on individual risks and benefits. 

After getting vaccinated for COVID-19, you might experience some temporary symptoms similar to those you might notice when you get a flu shot, such as a sore, swollen arm where you got the shot. You might run a fever and experience body aches, headaches and tiredness for a day or two. Chills, swollen lymph nodes can also occur. These symptoms do not mean you are sick. They signal that your immune system is responding to the shots and building up protection against the coronavirus.