You may not need a fourth Covid vaccine now but a flu shot

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New Delhi: Public health experts said a fourth shot of the Covid vaccine may be unwarranted..

To be sure, a fourth Covid dose can protect against a recurrence, considering it has been a while since the second dose for most people and only 220 million took the third dose in India..

Health experts, however, don't see the need for a fourth dose, especially since India's Covid cases have come down to 23 cases in the last 24 hours..

"There is no need for another dose of Covid vaccine right now," said Anurag Agrawal, former head of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (Insacog), the laboratory consortium, and chair of the World Health Organisation's Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution..

Also, considering that the severely mutated Omicron variant is the dominant strain, the older vaccines may not even be effective anymore, experts said.. Besides, Omicron has been a mild strain and treatment is now available...

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