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'Honour to meet you': Adar Poonawalla briefs Amit Shah on vaccine capacity
The government is yet to announce a price for Covishield and Covaxin for those who will get inoculated at private hospitals starting from March 1.
Ahead of the roll-out of the second phase of the vaccination drive which will cover around 27 crore people of India, Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla on Friday met Union home minister Amit Shah to brief him about the present vaccine capacity.
"It was my honour to brief you today, Shri Hon’ble @AmitShah Ji on the vaccine capabilities of our country and the ongoing rollout of vaccines in India," Poonawalla tweeted.
The meeting ahead of the beginning of the second phase of the vaccination is significant as the Centre has not yet announced the market price of Covishield doses. It has only said that those who will get their shots at private hospitals will have to pay.
Health ministry says over 1.37 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses administered
For the first phase of vaccination, which began on January 16, India procured the Covishield vaccine, manufactured by Serum Institute, at the cost of ₹200, excluding taxes. It was a discounted offer for the government, as it was said. For other countries, the price is around ₹400 per dose. But the government may cap the price once it is available in the market. One dose of Covaxin, produced by Bharat Biotech, will also cost around ₹295.
For the first time, vaccines will be available at private hospitals starting from March 1. Senior citizens, and people above the age of 45 years with co-morbidities will be able to register themselves to get the vaccine shots. The parallel process of inoculating frontline workers free of cost will also go on.
The move to rope in private hospitals where vaccines will be available for priority groups gives a shot in the arm of the vaccination process, which has already covered 1.34 crore doses as on Friday evening.
Not only in India, Serum Institute — the world's largest vaccine producer by the volume of doses produced, is playing a major role in global vaccine distribution. British-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca and US pharma company Novavax have said that they can scale up their vaccine production to over 300 million doses in partnership with Serum Institute.
