Booster doses of the Covid-19 vaccine will begin to be administered in Meghalaya, as with the rest of the country, from Monday.
Those who will be eligible for the third dose will be healthcare workers, frontline workers and those 60 years old and above.
Meghalaya’s booster dose rollout will be launched at the Regional Health and Family Welfare Training Centre in Laitumkrah here from 10am onwards.
“We should really take the vaccine, we should really go for a booster dose and all the young people who are eligible should go for the vaccine,” Principal Secretary in the Health Department, Sampath Kumar, said today.
The same vaccine will be administered as the third dose of booster and no mix and match will be allowed as of now. This means those who have received Covishield, the predominant vaccine in Meghalaya, as their first and second dose will receive Covishield as their third dose.
India’s decision to administer the third dose comes amid the presence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which is thought to be behind the rapid rise in new infections recorded nationwide over the last few days.
Vaccination was opened to those in the 15-17 age group on January 3.
Stating that this age group is an important one with less vaccine hesitancy as has been seen in other categories, Kumar said that his department is coordinating with Education to try and open schools up for the jab in order to try and vaccinate the entire age group within three weeks.
“Vaccination can be done even within the schools and college campuses so that way it will be easier for the students and, at the same time, we can cover a large number of people in one place,” he added.
