In a major decision, the government has allowed vaccination for everyone above the age of 18 from May 1.The decision was taken during a high-level meeting chaired by PM Narendra Modi during which he asserted that the government has been working hard for over a year to ensure that maximum numbers of Indians are able to get the vaccine in the shortest possible time.With this India will enter Phase 3 of the world's largest Covid-19 vaccination programme.
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As per the Phase 3 strategy, the pricing, procurement, eligibility and administration of vaccines will be made flexible.Besides, vaccine manufacturers will be incentivized to further scale up their production. A special emphasis will be on attracting new national and international players in the vaccination process.The central government has repeatedly stated that its vaccination strategy has been built on a "systematic and strategic end-to-end approach" while proactively building capacity across R&D, manufacturing and administration since April 2020.
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Phase-I of the Covid-19 vaccination strategy was launched on January 16, 2021, where priority was accorded to health care workers and frontline workers.Phase-II was initiated from March 1, 2021, which focused on protecting the most vulnerable. This included people above 45 years of age who account for more than 80 per cent of Covid mortality in the country.The key highlights of Phase 3 include:* Vaccine manufacturers would supply 50% of their monthly stock to the Centre and would be free to supply the remaining doses to state governments and in the open market.
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* Vaccine manufacturers will declare the price at which the dose will be available to state government and in open market, before May 1.* Centre will allow the import of fully ready-to-use vaccines to be entirely utilized in the states.* Centre, from its share, will allocate vaccines to StatesUTs based on the criteria of extent of infection (number of active Covid cases) and performance (speed of administration).
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