Dikhyaa Mohanty 
The Centre Government announced a liberalised and accelerated Phase 3 strategy of Covid-19 Vaccination from May 1, decided during a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to the report, the government decided that everyone above the age of 18 years will be eligible to get the Covid vaccination. The Centre Government also decided all the stakeholders will be given the flexibility to customise to local needs and vaccine manufacturers incentivized to further scale up their production, as well as attract new national and international players.
The report further elaborated that the vaccine manufacturers have been empowered to release up to 50% of their supply to the State Governments and in the open market at a pre-declared price. The States have been empowered to procure additional vaccine doses directly from the manufacturers, as well as open up vaccination to any category of people above the age of 18 for the same.
Under the third phase of the vaccination drive commencing next month, the vaccine manufacturers would supply 50 per cent of their monthly Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) released doses to the central government and would be free to supply the remaining 50 per cent doses to state governments and in the open market.
Pic Courtesy – Google
Manufacturers would have to make an advance declaration of the price for 50 per cent supply that would be available to the state governments and in the open market before May 1, 2021.
Based on this price, state governments, private hospitals, industrial establishments, etc would be able to procure vaccine doses from the manufacturers.
Private Hospitals would have to procure their supplies of COVID-19 vaccine exclusively from the 50 per cent supply earmarked for entities other than those coming through the central government channel.
The private vaccination providers would need to transparently declare their self-set vaccination price and the eligibility through this channel would be opened up to all adults, that is everyone above the age of 18.
Pic Courtesy – Google
Vaccination will continue as before in the government of India vaccination centres free of cost to the eligible population, healthcare and frontline workers and all people above 45 years of age.
Centre, from its share, will allocate vaccines to States/UTs based on the criteria of extent of infection (number of active Covid cases) & performance (speed of administration). Wastage of vaccine will also be considered in this criteria and will affect the criteria negatively. Based on the above criteria, State-wise quota would be decided and communicated to the States adequately in advance.
The Government of India’s Vaccination drive will continue as before, providing free vaccination for essential and priority populations as defined earlier i.e HCWs, FLWs and population above 45 years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “The Government has been working hard for over a year to ensure that maximum numbers of Indians can get the vaccine in the shortest possible of time. India is vaccinating people at world record pace and we will continue this with even greater momentum.”
Meanwhile, according to the Health Ministry, India reported 2,73,810 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total number of positive cases in the country to 1,50,61,919. There are currently 19,29,329 active cases in the country as of April 19. And the death toll reached 1,78,769 with additional 1,619 fatalities.
As per the official report, as many as 1,44,178 people recovered from the virus in the last 24 hours and the total number of recoveries reached 1,29,53,821.
Image Source – Google
