Indians travelling abroad will be allowed to take the precautionary dose of the Covid-19 vaccine as per the travel guidelines of the destination country, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya announced on Thursday.

Since April 10, all adults in India have been allowed to take the precautionary shot – a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine. However, till now, only those who took their second dose nine months ago were eligible for the third shot.

Those going abroad will be avail the new facility soon on the CoWin portal, Mandaviya said in a tweet.

With the union health ministry’s decision to relax the nine-month gap between the second dose and the booster shot, citizens will now be eligible to take the precautionary dose depending on the guidelines of where they are travelling to.

The Union health ministry’s decision was based on the recommendations of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, according to The Times of India.

On Thursday, India reported 2,827 new Covid-19 cases, with a daily positivity rate of 0.6 per cent. The current active caseload is 19,067, with a 98.74 per cent recovery rate. In the last 24 hours, 3,230 persons recovered.

India has administered 190.83 crore vaccine doses till now. It has conducted 84.24 crore Covid-19 tests in all.