Covid-19: Booster dose for foreign-bound in pipeline as India opens skies

New Delhi: With India set to reopen its skies for scheduled international commercial passenger flights from midnight on Saturday, the Union Health Ministry is debating the effectiveness of extending a Covid booster dose to foreign-bound Indians.

Health Ministry sources said discussions were underway on extension of precaution doses, currently available only to health workers, frontline workers and 60 year-plus people.

The discussions are also underway on whether such foreign-bound Indians should be given a free booster dose or they be charged for it. The ongoing discussions are almost fortnight old when the External Affairs Ministry flagged the fact that some countries were imposing travel restrictions on Indians on account of the lack of a booster shot.

The debate has assumed urgency with India opening for scheduled foreign flights from midnight today. “We are discussing the possibilities of allowing Covid precaution dose to people who need to travel abroad for jobs, education, sports events, formal meetings as part of India’s delegation or otherwise,” sources said. Several overseas airlines have chalked out plans to add more destinations to and from India with skies reopening tonight. About two weeks ago, the Ministry of Civil Aviation had announced that scheduled international passenger commercial flights would resume from 00.01 hours on March 27, 2022, after nearly a two-year hiatus owing to the Covid pandemic.

In light of the same, several foreign airlines have decided to add flights to their schedule for passengers, but all of them have advised travellers to check the Covid advisories before their travel.

Lufthansa Group recently announced that it had 22 weekly flights between Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich, and Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The airline said it was planning to raise the number of weekly flights to 28 next month, 33 in May, 39 in June and 42 by October.

Similarly, reports citing Malaysian Airlines’ country manager stated that the airline would be reinstating 25 weekly connecting flights to key Indian cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad. Air Canada too has announced 21 weekly return flights to Delhi from its airports in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

The Carrier from the Gulf, Emirates, too has announced that it would reintroduce its pre-pandemic service frequency across its destinations in India beginning April 1. It will operate 170 weekly flights from nine cities in India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Kochi.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)