Centre accepted my suggestion: Rahul Gandhi welcomes roll out of Covid-19 booster doses

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said the Centre has "accepted my suggestion" to allow the administration of booster doses of Covid vaccine and asserted that the protection of vaccines and booster shots has to be provided to every citizen of the country.

His remarks came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that "precaution dose" for healthcare and frontline workers would be administered from January 10.

"The central government has accepted my suggestion for a booster dose -- this is a right step. The protection of vaccines and booster shots would have to be provided to all the people in the country," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi using hashtags 'BoosterJab' and 'VaccinateIndia'.

The former Congress chief also tagged his tweet posted on December 22 in which he had said that a majority of the country's population was still not vaccinated against COVID-19 and asked the government when it will roll out booster shots. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Saturday that vaccination against COVID-19 for children between 15-18 years will start from January 3, while "precaution dose" for healthcare and frontline workers would be administered from January 10, decisions that come amid rising Covid cases linked to the Omicron variant of the virus.

In an address to the nation, he said the precaution dose will also be available for citizens above 60 years of age and with comorbidities on the advice of their doctor from January 10 next year as well. The precaution dose denotes a third dose of the vaccine for the fully vaccinated but Modi refrained from using the term "booster dose", as it is generally referred.

Administration of nasal vaccine and world's first DNA vaccine against Covid will soon start in India as well, he said.

The prime minister said global experience shows that following all preventive measures at a personal level is "big weapon" to fight Covid and so is vaccination. This is time to be careful, while engaging in festivities, he said.

"I would urge all of you not to panic, be careful and alert. Remember to mask up and keep washing hands," Modi said.

Noting that India started giving the vaccine to its citizens from January 16 this year, Modi said due to the people's collective effort and will, India has crossed the "unprecedented" and very difficult milestone of having administered 141 crore vaccine doses.

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