No plan to change dosage interval for Covishield for now, says Centre

The government on Thursday said that there was no plan to reduce the dose gap for Covishield as news reports suggested that the 84-day interval between two shots will be reviewed for the third time this year following a recommendation by health experts.

NK Arora, the chief of National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) told ET that, “currently, there is no proposal for change in the dose interval for Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V, which is under consideration,” he told ET. He said that right now there are several studies and programmatic data collection processes are on to assess the vaccine effectiveness. “NTAGI is reviewing the vaccine effectiveness data on a regular basis,” he said.

It is learnt that some health research bodies have recommended reducing the gap. But Arora denied any rethink on the same.

The dose gap for Serum Institute of India's (SII) Covishield, the Indian version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, was increased to 12-16 weeks from 6-8 weeks, NTAGI recommended the extension of the dose gap in May this year.

It was 4-6 weeks when the vaccination drive started in January. In March the government decided to stretch the gap from 4 weeks to 6-8 weeks citing better results.


The gap for Bharat Biotech's Covaxin remained the same at four weeks interval. The decision to increase the gap in May had raised several questions, with public health experts linking it to the shortage of vaccines. However, the government had said that the decision to extend it further was taken considering real life evidence from the UK.

Third Jab
Meanwhile, according to a PTI news report, the Centre told the Kerala HC on Thursday that clinical trials are underway to ascertain efficacy of administering a third dose of Covid vaccine and it will take several months to complete, while opposing a man's plea for a third jab of an internationally recognised vaccine so that he can go abroad for work.