Indian government announces free vaccination to all | Fusion - WeRIndia

Yesterday Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation. In his speech, he announced that the central government would provide free vaccine from June 21 to all citizens aged above 18 years.

Earlier, PM Modi government said it would give free vaccines to frontline workers and citizens aged above 45 years. And states have to bear the cost of providing vaccines to remaining people in the age group of 18-44 years. Hence, many states announced free vaccination to their citizens.

But, now the central government decided to provide free vaccination to all citizens by acquiring them for states also. Hence, vaccines will be supplied to states for free in this regard.

Here are the highlights of PM Modi’s speech:

• The central government will procure vaccines to give them to states from June 21. So, states need not spend money on the vaccination programme.
• As 75 per cent of vaccines will be procured by the central government, private hospitals can procure 25 per cent of vaccines for the inoculation programme. They should not charge more than ₹150 as their service charge per dose.
• So far, 23 crore vaccine doses have been administered in India. As the demand is increasing, vaccine manufacturers are trying to scale up their production.
• Currently, seven companies are manufacturing vaccines against COVID-19 in India. Three more vaccines are likely to start production soon as they are at their advanced stage trials.
• Research has been continuing on a nasal spray vaccine. It will boost the vaccination drive after its successful commencement of production in the country.
• Though the demand for vaccine has been increasing, the vaccine-producing countries cannot meet it due to the shortage of production.
• Many countries are struggling to provide vaccines to their people.
• The Centre will continue the free ration scheme till November. The scheme benefits more than 80 crore people.

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