High Court tells Centre to allow 2nd dose of Covishield after 4 weeks

Sept. 6: The Kerala High Court on Monday ordered the Centre to allow a second dose of Covishield after a four-week gap instead of 12. The government was also asked to make changes to the CoWIN app to enable a reduced dose gap for “those who want it”. Justice P.B. Suresh Kumar said that if the central and state governments can permit persons travelling abroad to choose between early and better protection from COVID-19, there is no reason why the same privilege cannot be extended to those here who want early protection in connection with their employment or education.

It further said that according to the Centre vaccination was voluntary and there was no compulsion on the part of anyone to accept it and therefore, the requirement to administer two doses of the vaccine and the time interval between them for better protection from infection “can only be considered as advisory”.

The petitioners in this case are two companies – Kitex Garments and Kitex Childrenswear – with more than 10,000 employees. The companies say to protect workers and their families, they decided to vaccinate them without waiting for the government, and bought vaccines for Rs.52,30,680. The companies bought 12,000 more doses to give the second dose to employees.

The dose gap for Serum Institute of India’s vaccine Covishield, the Indian version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, was four to six weeks when nationwide vaccinations started in January. This was increased to six-eight weeks. In May, the government revised the dose gap to 12 to 16 weeks citing “real life evidence from the UK”.