Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar has stated that the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) and National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID (NEGVAC) are deliberating and considering scientific evidence related to booster doses.
“So far, no specific recommendation regarding COVID-19 vaccine booster dose has been made by NTAGI or NEGVAC. There are at present no recommendations on booster dose from the World Health Organization,” she said in the Rajya Sabha earlier this week. The vaccines have been developed very recently and, therefore, scientific evidence was still evolving globally on the duration of protection.
Dr. Pawar said that the current isolation, quarantine, treatment, and other public health measures remained valid in case of reinfection too.
The currently available information on COVID-19 was not adequate enough to tell the difference between persistent virus shedding and reinfection, and testing positive more than once does not necessarily indicate reinfection, the Health Ministry said in response to a question.
Dr. Pawar noted that there were cases of reinfection. She pointed out that studies on SARS-CoV-2 reinfection had been published in the journal of Epidemiology and Infection. “The study has concluded that while COVID-19 reinfection is still rarely reported, nonetheless, immunity should not be assumed and public health measures such as physical distancing, hand hygiene and use of masks should be followed after recovery from the first event of infection,” she asserted.
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