With a lot of private hospitals outnumbering their state-run counterparts, the Centre has devised a formula for maximum monthly limit of stocks at private vaccination centres.
According to an exclusive report by Times of India, the government has said that private vaccination centres cannot directly procure jabs from manufacturers starting July 1.
An SOP document circulated among Mumbai hospitals on Tuesday says the maximum vaccine stock a private hospital can procure is double their average daily consumption for a particular week in the previous month.
For hospitals that plan to join the vaccination drive now and do not have a prior consumption record, maximum limit will be worked out based on number of hospital beds available.
All private hospitals will enter required details into the CoWIN database that will then aggregate district- and state-wise demand before passing the information on to the manufacturers.
A marked increase in the pace of COVID-19 vaccination has been observed from June 21 with around 4.61 crore doses being administered in eight days, which is more than the population of Iraq (4.02 crore), Canada (3.77 crore), Saudi Arabia (3.48 crore) and Malaysia (3.23 crore), the government said on Tuesday. On an average, 57.68 lakh doses of the vaccine were administered per day which is more than the population of Finland (55.41 lakh), Norway (54.21 lakh) and New Zealand (48.22 lakh), Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said addressing a press conference.
The new revised guidelines of COVID-19 vaccination came into effect from June 21, according to which the Centre will now procure 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced by the manufacturers in the country.
In order to incentivise production by vaccine manufacturers and encourage new vaccines, domestic vaccine manufacturers are given the option to also provide vaccines directly to private hospitals. This would be restricted to 25 per cent of their monthly production, the new guidelines stated. Agarwal informed that 49 per cent of the population aged 60 years and above has been vaccinated with the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. The government highlighted that the cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 33.11 crore so far.
Out of an estimated 59.7 crore people in the age group of 18-44 years, 15 per cent have been vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine, it said. Agarwal said from June 21-28, 57.68 lakh average daily doses have been delivered.
“A marked increase in vaccine administration in the present phase (June 21-28) with 4.61 crore doses administered in 8 days which is more than the population of Iraq (4.02 crore), Canada (3.77 crore), Saudi Arabia (3.48 crore) and Malaysia (3.23 crore),” he said.
Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here.
Comments
0 comment