Cars waiting in queue at the site of a drive-through Covid-19 vaccination drive in Ahmedabad on Wednesday

Chairman of India’s Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 vaccination, Dr NK Arora, has defended the Centre’s decision to increase the gap between both doses of Covishield to 12-16 weeks from the earlier norm of 6-8 weeks. The Health Ministry accepted the recommendation on Thursday.

It was the National Technical Advisory Group on immunisation headed by Dr Arora that had recommended extending the gap between two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. Covishield, developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, is being produced by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII).