Its president, Dr Kuljit Singh, said it was worried about the fast pace of new variants in the region and elsewhere in the world.

“Our healthcare workers may be susceptible to infection of Covid-19 and suffer serious complications in the event the initial doses do not protect anymore,” he said in a statement today.

“The government should initiate discussions with the private healthcare stakeholders to work out mechanisms in getting the booster doses rolled out once formal approvals are attained from the regulatory authorities.

“Our success in managing the pandemic relies on the safety and health of the healthcare frontliners.”

He said it would be prudent to study the efficacy and potential immunity outcomes of booster doses and also the science of using heterologous boosters, which may be effective against different mutations.

Kuljit noted that the first batch of fully vaccinated healthcare workers should have completed their second dose five months ago.

He estimated that close to 80% of the population would be fully vaccinated within the next two or three months.

Once the healthcare workers were sufficiently protected after the proposed booster dose, he said, the country could start looking at booster shots for the rest of the fully vaccinated, particularly those from high-risk groups.

He said although this would be based on the acceptability of published evidence on booster doses, many countries had started this exercise.

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