Monthly vax quota set for private hospitals | Economic Times

Private hospitals will be assigned a monthly vaccine quota based on their inoculation capacity and location under the new vaccination strategy, officials in the know told ET.After Monday’s announcement, the Centre has placed fresh orders for 440 million doses — 250 million Covishield and 190 million Covaxin — to be supplied between August and December. “For this, 30% of the advance for procurement has been released to Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech,” a Union health ministry official said.Revised Guidelines NotifiedFor private medical facilities, the Centre will revert to the previous payment gateway through the National Health Authority (NHA) as it was felt that this would help scale up the immunisation drive, said an official.The Centre would facilitate procurement of the 25% vaccines set aside for private hospitals by SII and Bharat Biotech. This, sources said, would be based on the facility’s inoculation capacity and geographical location in a city. This quota would be conveyed to the facility at least a fortnight in advance. 83358132The Union health ministry said on Tuesday it has notified the new vaccination strategy which would come into effect from June 21. As per the guidelines, the state governments would ask the private hospitals to indicate their vaccine demand. This would be aggregated and then sent to health ministry, which would in turn facilitate procurement from the vaccine manufacturer. The doses would be assigned to every private hospital by the state governments. This is being done to scale up private participation in India’s inoculation drive. The Centre has maintained that 10 million vaccinations in a day can only be achieved if the private sector scales up. At present, India is administering 2.2-2.6 million doses daily. At the beginning of the public immunisation drive, 9,000 private hospitals were involved, which fell to 2,000 in May when the vaccination strategy changed.