Vaccine For All Above 18 Starting May 1; 50% Supplies To States And Open Market

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New Delhi: The government announced that every person above the age of 18 years will be eligible to be vaccinated against Covid-19 from May 1.

All adults can get Covid shots and states can buy doses directly from vaccine-makers in the “liberalised and accelerated Phase 3 strategy of COVID-19 vaccination”, the government said, on a day the country reported 2.73 lakh new daily cases in the highest spike since the pandemic broke out a year ago.

Pricing, procurement, eligibility and administering of vaccines will be flexible in the latest round of the world’s largest vaccination drive.

Vaccine manufacturers have been incentivized to scale up their production and release up to 50 per cent of their supply to states and in the open market at a declared price.

States can now get additional vaccine doses directly from the manufacturers.                                    

Here are some important new rules:

·         Vaccine manufacturers will supply 50 per cent of their monthly Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) released doses to the central government and will be free to supply the remaining doses to state governments and in the open market.

·         Manufacturers will declare prices in advance for the vaccines supplied to state governments and in open market.

·         Based on this price, state governments, private hospitals, industrial establishments can buy vaccine doses from the manufacturers.

·         Vaccinations at central government centres, provided free of cost, will continue for those eligible currently – health workers, frontline workers and those above 45.

·         The centre will allocate vaccines from its share to states or union territories based on the number of cases. Vaccine wastage can affect the quota of a state.

·         The second dose for those eligible currently will be priority.                     

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