Centre will be spending about Rs 10,000 crore to inoculate the priority group of 30 crore Indians in the first phase of the Covid-19 vaccination drive, sources in the Union finance ministry have told India Today TV.
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Phase 1 of the vast inoculation exercise will be funded by the central government. While some states such as Bihar and Kerala have said coronavirus vaccines will be given free of cost, more states are likely to make similar announcements soon.
Sources have also revealed that the government is unwilling to take loans from international banks for funding the mammoth vaccination drive.
India already has support under the Covax global vaccine sharing plan, which is co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and GAVI. The agreement aims to provide poor and middle-income countries with vaccines through a fund known as the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which was set up last April. GAVI is currently in talks with the Indian government over a support package for vaccination in the country.
Among the Phase 1 priority groups listed by the National Expert Group on Vaccines (NEGVAC) are 1 crore healthcare workers including, doctors, nurses, and paramedical staff along with 2 crore frontline and essential workers and 27 crores elderly, mostly above the age of 50 years with comorbidities such as diabetes, heart or liver ailments, etc — the population that is more susceptible to a severe form of the coronavirus infection.
The three likely vaccines in the fray for emergency use authorization (EUA) from the DCGI are the doses developed by Pfizer, Bharat Biotech, and Serum Institute of India (SII). However, the most likely candidate to be ready and checked for safety in the first phase of inoculation would be the Covishield vaccine developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca along with the Serum Institute of India.
The SII has earlier said that it would stockpile 500 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine till March 2021. The vaccine is estimated to cost about Rs 250 per dose. India needs 600 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine to inoculate 30 crore people under the current plan.
Mean-while, India has recorded 26,382 fresh coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking the country’s total number of cases to 99,32,548. Among the 99.3 lakh coronavirus cases, India now has a total of 3,32,002 active Covid-19 cases while 94,56,449 have been discharged so far. In the past 24 hours, the country also recorded 33,813 new discharges.
With 387 new Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours, India’s death toll has gone up to 1,44,096.
The Covid-19 active caseload remained below four lakh for the 10th consecutive day. There are 3,32,002 active coronavirus infections in the country which constitute 3.34% of the total caseload.
India’s Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, and 40 lakh on September 5. It went past 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, 80 lakh on October 29, and 90 lakh on November 20.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 15,66,46,280 samples have been tested up to December 15, of which 10,85,625 were conducted on Tuesday.
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