Paid Booster Dose in Private Healthcare Centres Opened for All Adults from Sunday
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, April 8: The private healthcare centres will step in from Sunday to accelerate the process of administering booster dose of Coronavirus vaccine as the union health ministry on Friday opened the third doze for all the adults in the country above the age of 60.
The health ministry on Friday announced the precautionary third dose would be available for the 18-plus population at private vaccination centres from April 10. It would be applicable to those adults who have completed nine months or 39 weeks after receiving the second dose of the vaccine.
The precautionary dose for the 18-plus population at private vaccination centres would not be free of cost but the recipients would have to pay for it. Private centres would soon announce the price of the precautionary dose and the same would be reflected on the CoWin platform, the health ministry said.
The order means that unlike the booster shots announced for healthcare workers, frontline staff and those above 60, the third jab will not be free for most adults. But the government also announced that “Ongoing free vaccination programme through government vaccination centres for first and second dose as well as Precaution Dose to Healthcare Workers, Frontline Workers and 60+ population would continue and would be accelerated.”
It said India would continue to follow homologous vaccination for booster schedules. This means that a beneficiary who has received two doses of Covishield will have to take Covishield as the third dose. Similarly, those who received two doses of Covaxin will have to take Covaxin as the precautionary dose. Co-Win platform is expected to send SMS to beneficiaries for availing the precaution dose when it becomes due.
According to the government order, registration and appointment services can be accessed both online and offline. Those who don’t want to book slots on CoWin can get the precautionary dose at private vaccination centres that offer walk-in facilities.
More than 2.4 crore precaution dose including 45.15 lakh health care workers, 69.77 lakh frontline workers, and 1.25 crore people above the age of 60 years have received the precautionary dose so far. About 96 per cent of the 15 and above population in the country have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose while about 83 per cent of has received both doses, it added. The Ministry stated that 45% of the 12-14 age group had also received the first dose.
The decision to open up the booster to all adults comes as infections grow in many countries and some Indians find it hard to travel abroad without a third dose. Countries such as Israel, for example, do not consider vaccination complete in the absence of booster doses.
Despite concerns over new mutations of the coronavirus, including the XE variant, Infections in India have fallen to their lowest in more than a year, with 1,109 new cases reported in the past 24 hours and 43 deaths. India’s total infections now stand at more than 4.3 crore, with 5.21 lakh deaths.
Though the private healthcare centres would announce the prices of the booster doses soon, the central government in June, last year, had capped the prices for vaccines to be sold at private hospitals. With a ceiling of ₹150 that hospitals can charge a dose as ‘service charge’ and a GST of 5%, the maximum price chargeable for Covishield is ₹780, Covaxin, ₹1,410 and Sputnik V ₹1,145, the Ministry had said in an order.
