COVID vaccine booster doses will be required, immediate studies needed, says top AIIMS doctor

Emphasising on the requirement of a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccines, a top doctor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) called for immediate studies to be commenced to ascertain its effectiveness on various age groups.

The Government of India is running 'Har Ghar Dastak' programme to ramp up the COVID vaccination drive. Meanwhile, many experts have urged for studies on booster doses especially for those with comorbidities. Currently, there are no studies that support the usage of a booster dose.

Speaking to ANI, Dr Naveet Wig, Chairperson of the Covid Task Force in AIIMS said, "Booster doses will be required and immediate studies are needed, based on age groups and different patients. In Israel, vaccine effectiveness after the booster dose rose from 40 per cent to 93 per cent."

Dr Wig further said, "The immune system of those who have got COVID and took vaccine will be fine. Currently, seropositivity in the country is very good. But what is the seropositivity in those specific individuals who are more than 60 or 70 years of age with cancer or immunosuppression with kidney disease? So, we have to do these small studies as soon as possible. And then we have to brainstorm and take our informed decision when we have to get the boosters."

Showing concern over the new coronavirus variant Dr Wig stressed on universal vaccination.

"The new variant is supposed to be more effective and transmissible, with less neutralization with antibodies, so we have to understand that new variants will keep coming."

The newly identified COVID-19 variant --- B.1.1.529 --- is causing an increase in new COVID-19 infections in South Africa.

However, the new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529 has not been found in India so far, said official sources on Friday.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a special meeting to discuss the new Covid variant.

"We don't know very much about this yet. What we do know is that this variant has a large number of mutations. And the concern is that when you have so many mutations, it can have an impact on how the virus behaves," Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's the technical lead on COVID-19, said in a briefing.

( With inputs from ANI )

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