Covid-19: Government to procure 66 crore more doses of Covishield, Covaxin at revised rates

The Centre has placed an order to procure 66 crore more doses of Covishield and Covaxin to be supplied between August and December this year at a revised price of Rs 205 and Rs 215 per dose respectively excluding taxes official sources saidThey said 375 crore of Covishield doses from the Serum Institute of India and 285 crore Covaxin doses from Bharat Biotech will be procured by DecemberAn order to procure 66 crore more doses of Covid19 vaccinesCovishield and Covaxinto be supplied between August and December at a revised price of Rs 205 and Rs 215 per dose respectively excluding taxes has been placed the source saidThe price of each dose of Covishield amounts to Rs 21525 and Covaxin Rs 22575 including taxes it saidThe Union health ministry which was procuring both the vaccines at Rs 150 per dose had indicated that the prices would be revised after the new Covid19 vaccine procurement policy came into effect from June 21 Under the new policy the ministry will procure 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced by the drug manufacturers in the countryWhile the Centre has asked both the vaccine manufacturing firms to scale up their production the manufacturers had indicated that getting Rs 150 for each dose while making investments to ramp up the production was not viable for them sources saidThe Union government had earlier allowed states and private hospitals to procure 50 per cent of the vaccines following demands for decentralisation of the processAlso read IIScs warm Covid19 vaccine effective against all major variants of concern StudyHowever after several states complained of problems including of funding Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the revision of the vaccine guidelines on June 8Domestic vaccine manufacturers are given the option to provide 25 per cent of their monthly production of vaccines to private hospitalsAccording to the revised guidelines which came into effect from June 21 vaccine doses provided free of cost by the Centre will be allocated to statesUTs based on criteria such as population disease burden and the progress of vaccination and all above the age of 18 will be eligible for the free jabsAny wastage of vaccine will affect the allocation negativelyThe states and UTs would aggregate the demand of private hospitals keeping in view equitable distribution between large and small private hospitals and regional balanceBased on this aggregated demand the Government of India will facilitate the supply of these vaccines to the private hospitals and their payment through theNational Health Authoritys electronic platform This would enable the smaller and remoter private hospitals to obtain a timely supply of vaccines and further equitable access and regional balance the ministry had saidThe price of vaccine doses for private hospitals would be declared by each vaccine manufacturer and any subsequent changes would be notified in advance it saidMore than 4169 crore vaccine doses have been provided to states and UTs so far through all sources the health ministry said on SaturdayThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever