Case load in States to decide supply of vaccine

The progress of vaccination drive, State's population and disease burden will dictate the allocation of vaccines

Hyderabad: The performance of individual States in efficiently administering Covid vaccines, measures taken to reduce vaccine wastage and the disease burden will dictate how the Centre will allocate free vaccines.

In the revised new guidelines for implementation of the National Covid Vaccination Programme, released by the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday, the MOHFW said that vaccine wastage will affect the allocation of Covid vaccines negatively. Apart from that, the progress of vaccination drive, State’s population and disease burden will also dictate the allocation of vaccines.

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In case the vaccine supply from the Centre is hindered by logistics and difficulties in production, the State governments can now decide their prioritisation. This means that in case of slow or short supply of Covid vaccines, the States can prioritise beneficiaries based on their health status. For instance, in case of shortage, individuals between 18 years and 44 years of age with comorbid conditions might be vaccinated first before healthy individuals.

On the pricing of the Covid vaccines in private hospitals, the revised Covid vaccine guidelines have left it to the vaccine manufacturer to declare their pricing. “The price of vaccine doses for private hospitals would be declared by the vaccine manufacturer. The private hospitals may charge up to a maximum of Rs 150 per dose as service charges and the State governments may monitor the price being charged,” the guidelines said.

To have some parity on the availability of Covid vaccines in small and big corporate hospitals, the fresh guidelines said State governments can aggregate the demand of private hospitals keeping in view equitable distribution between large and small private hospitals.

“Based on the aggregated demand, Centre will facilitate the supply of the vaccines to private hospitals, which would enable the smaller and remoter private hospitals to obtain timely supply of vaccines and further equitable access and regional balance,” the guidelines said.

On procurement of vaccines, the Centre will procure 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced by the vaccine manufacturers while the remaining 25 per cent will be available at private hospitals. Earlier, the Centre was procuring 50 per cent of the Covid vaccines while the remaining 50 per cent was left for the State governments and private hospitals to procure.

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