New Delhi: Following a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, days into a significant surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, the Centre has announced that everyone above the age of 18 will now be eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccine shots.
The earlier age limit was 45.
The Centre has also said that the procurement, eligibility and administration of vaccines is being made flexible in Phase 3 of India’s vaccination drive.
Vaccine manufacturers will now be empowered to release up to 50% of their supply to state governments and in the open market at a pre-declared price, the government has announced. States, too, have crucially now been empowered to “procure additional vaccine doses directly from the manufacturers”.
In addition to a public interest litigation at the Supreme Court, which pleaded for the minimum age for vaccines to be lowered, several state governments helmed by parties in the opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party have in the past few days written to the Centre and the prime minister, asking for the vaccination drive to be broadened.
A day ago, on April 18, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the COVID-19 crisis, stressing that ramping up vaccination was the key to battling the pandemic.
Several experts, including epidemiologist Bhramar Mukherjee, who also spoke to The Wire, had noted that India needed to act on vaccination while COVID-19 cases were in the “valley”, i.e. before the surge in case numbers.
In the meantime, India’s vaccine rollout process also received setbacks in the form of shortages, leading centres across the country to stop vaccinating people.
“The total production capacity of the manufacturers of Covishield and Covaxin, the two local players, is roughly 24 lakh vaccines a day. The current demand is 37 lakh vaccines a day,” The Wire had noted in an analysis on April 10. Coupled with commitments to the global vaccination facility, COVAX, India also continues to face increasing demand for shots.
In the latest decision by the Centre, manufacturers have further been “incentivised to further scale up production, attract new national and international players,” the Centre announced.
The Centre’s vaccination drive, it noted, will continue as before. Within it, free shots will be provided for “essential and priority populations as defined earlier”, including healthcare workers, frontline workers and people above 45 years of age.