Delhi and Bihar which have started inoculating free precaution doses for the 18- 59 year age groups, should repay the national health authority for utilizing the available stock of jabs provided by the union government for the purpose.
The union health ministry has made a distribution on the Cowin portal for creating spells to administer the booster doses at government Covid vaccination centers. This has come in to light after the requests made by the two states. They had asked consent from the ministry to use the available stock of Covid vaccine as a precaution dose in government vaccination centers for free, promising that they would refund the stock upon acquisition.
According to official sources, ” The union health ministry has accepted their approach, but they shall refund the cost of the vaccine used for the purpose to the national health authority “. Delhi health department said that the same will be available for the 18-59 years age group, in order to offer the benefit of booster dose to all eligible beneficiaries in Delhi, free of cost in all govt CVCs from April 21.
Bihar’s Additional chief secretary had told the center, ” As the procurement of vaccines may take a few days, we request you to kindly allow the administration of the present stock of vaccines as precaution dose to 18-59 years age group which would be later repaid upon procurement by the state.”