Covid booster dose: Rates of Covishield, Covaxin slashed to Rs 225 per shot
A day before the Centre rolls out precautionary doses of Covid-19 vaccines to all adults, the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech on Saturday slashed the prices of Covishield and Covaxin vaccines for private hospitals to Rs 225 per dose.
At present, each dose of Covishield costs Rs 600 at private hospitals, while Covaxin costs Rs 1,200.
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“We are pleased to announce that after discussion with the Central government, the SII has decided to revise the price of COVISHIELD vaccine for private hospitals from Rs.600 to Rs 225 per dose,” tweeted SII chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla.
Poonawalla also commended the government’s decision to open booster dose vaccination to all adults.
We are pleased to announce that after discussion with the Central Government, SII has decided to revise the price of COVISHIELD vaccine for private hospitals from Rs.600 to Rs 225 per dose. We once again commend this decision from the Centre to open precautionary dose to all 18+.
— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) April 9, 2022
On behalf of Bharat Biotech, company joint managing director Suchitra Ella said: “We have decided to revise the price of Covaxin from Rs 1200 to Rs 225 per dose for private hospitals”.
India will continue to follow homologous vaccination for booster schedules. “Administration of precaution dose will be homologous i.e. same vaccine type will be used for precaution dose which was used for vaccination of 1st and 2nd dose,” the health ministry has said.
This means that a beneficiary who has received two doses of Covishield will have to take Covishield as the third dose. Similarly, those who received two doses of Covaxin will have to take Covaxin as the precautionary dose.
