This comes after the Centre wrote to States and UTs to increase the interval between two doses of Covishield to 4-8 weeks in view of the emerging scientific evidence of increased protection if the second dose of Covishield is administered between 4-8 weeks after the first dose.
“Now, CoWIN does not schedule your second dose vaccination appointment automatically. You should schedule it yourself as per the recommended gap between the two doses of the vaccine,” Sharma said.
‘CoWIN’ is a digitalised platform for the effective national rollout and scaling up of the Covid Vaccine Distribution System.
Registration and booking for appointment for Covid-19 vaccination is to be done through CoWIN portal: http://cowin.gov.in.
This decision of the revised time interval between two doses is applicable only to Covishield and not to Covaxin, said the health ministry.
According to the ministry, in a letter written by the Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan to the Chief Secretaries of States/Union Territories (UTs) today, he has noted that Union Health Ministry has accepted the recommendations of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) and National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 (NEGVAC) and has thereafter advised the states and UTs to ensure the administration of the second dose of Covishield to beneficiaries within this stipulated time interval of four to eight weeks after the first dose.
As per the Union Health Ministry, 5,31,45,709 Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered so far.
At present, there are 3,68,457 active coronavirus cases in the country, 1,12,05,160 have recovered from the disease while 1,60,441 died.