Delhi HC dismisses plea seeking 8-week Covishield dose interval for those aged above 50

On Thursday, the Delhi High Court refused to entertain a plea seeking a reduction in the Covishield dose interval from 12-16 weeks to 8 weeks for those aged above 50. The petitioner was relying on the vaccine surveillance report issued by Public Health England on May 27. A division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh questioned the petitioner on whether he knew the procedure for fixing the interval between two doses. 

Responding to this, advocate Kuldeep Jauhari stated that his client is a doctor who can explain the procedure. However, the bench warned of dismissing the plea with costs unless it is withdrawn. Moreover, the HC added, "Health experts come here every day. We cannot issue guidelines every day. We gave you a chance to argue but you could not make out a case. Please withdraw this". After the petitioner agreed to do the same, no costs were imposed. 

Dosage interval gap

At the outset, the Covishield dosage interval was 28 days which was increased to 6-8 weeks in March. On May 13, the Centre accepted the recommendations of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation to extend the gap further to 12-16 weeks. While the opposition linked this to the shortage of novel coronavirus vaccines, NTAGI chairman Dr. NK Arora asserted that the increase in the Covishield dose interval is based on "scientific evidence". 

NTAGI head Dr. NK Arora remarked, "For COVISHIELD, the interval has been increased from 6-8 weeks to 12-16 weeks, i.e 3-4 months. This has been based on scientific evidence. We got real-time data from the UK which suggested that if a single dose is given and the interval before the second dose is given, the protection provided is between 65-88%. We certainly want our population to be well protected and immunization is a key intervention."

COVID-19 vaccination in India

Apart from Covishield and Covaxin, the DCGI accepted the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, paving way for the approval of Sputnik V and Moderna on April 12 and June 29 respectively. Furthermore, the Union government declared that those vaccines that have been granted emergency approval for restricted use by USFDA, EMA, UK MHRA, PMDA Japan, or which are listed in WHO (Emergency Use Listing) will be granted emergency use approval in India. A total of 31,04,89,925 persons have been inoculated whereas 7,65,89,233 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.