'Booster under consideration, priority on both doses of vaccines'

New Delhi, Dec 2 (IANS) The booster dose for citizens is still under consideration in India and the top priority for the government is to administer both doses of vaccines to the entire eligible population, said Dr. V.K. Paul, Member-Health, NITI Aayog on Thursday, here.

"Scientific reasoning for providing boosters at what timing, for which vaccine, is under examination," he said, adding "our priority is very clear to complete the task of vaccinating all adults with both doses".

"Vaccination is the only most critical tool that we have to use despite the new challenges of Omicron," said Paul.

Talking about the duration between two doses, he added that the decision on the duration for second dose is taken with the consideration of scientific study, local data and the vaccination.

Urging people to get vaccinated with second doses, Paul said the the increased Covid vaccine uptake is the need of the hour and urged people not to delay in getting fully vaccinated.

Addressing a press conference on the ongoing Covid situation here, Luv Agrawal, Joint Secretary Health, said that the surge in cases is being observed across the world on an overall basis.

Europe has reported 70 per cent of the cases in the world in last one week. In the week ending November 28, around 2.75 lakh new cases and over 31,000 deaths were reported in the European region.

He said that in comparison to this, the Southeast Asian region that includes India and 11 other countries, reported only 1.2 lakh cases in the last one week -- only 3.1 per cent of the cases of the world. A decrease in cases is being reported in the Southeast Asian region.