Adar Poonawalla wants booster gap to be cut to 6 months

Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer (CEO) of Serum Institute of India (SII), on Thursday, said the government should focus on reducing the gap between the second and third dose of Covid-19 vaccines to six months, as is being done globally.

Pune-based SII's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin were granted conditional market authorisation by India's drug regulator on Thursday.

"We are delighted to receive the conditional market authorisation for Covishield from DCGI," he said in a statement. "With this our focus should be to reduce the gap between the second and the third dose to six months, as it is done globally." India is administering the third dose (precaution dose) of Covishield - developed by the University of Oxford with British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca and manufactured in the country by SII - and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin at a gap of nine months after the second dose.


"Our objective must be get the population fully vaccinated to curb the spread of the pandemic," Poonawalla said.

India started giving the precaution dose - which remains the same as the primary dose - this month to healthcare and frontline workers, and those above 60 with comorbidities.

While the ideal gap is unknown, some countries are keeping it between three and six months.

People in the health ministry said the gap of nine months between the second and third dose holds the right balance, and denied any rethink on the issue.