Intranasal Covid vaccine rollout to start from private sector: Senior official | Pune News – Times of India

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PUNE: Bharat Biotech’s intranasal Covid vaccine – iNCOVACC – would be initially available in private health hubs, a senior official of the Union health ministry said.
The official told TOI that as of now, the Centre had not issued any guidelines regarding making these vaccines available at government vaccination sites. “So, it would be administered at private vaccination sites. One can book it through CoWIN,” he said.
The official said, “There will be no mass order from the state governments. Only private healthcare units will place orders with the company and they will be supplied with the vaccine.”
Bharat Biotech’s nasal vaccine received official approval for use among people older than 18 years as a heterologous booster dose. According to Bharat Biotech, the intranasal vaccine will cost Rs325 per shot for government institutions and Rs800 per dose for private immunisation facilities. The nasal vaccine can be used as a heterologous booster dose even for those who have taken Covaxin and Covishield shots. But it cannot be administered to those who have taken a precaution or booster dose, the head of the country’s vaccine task force said.
Representatives of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) said they had reached out to private vaccination sites regarding stocking up the vaccine. Dr Jaylal, former national president of IMA, said they would take a cautious approach because there was hardly any demand for vaccines, especially with Covid cases plummeting.
“We may not be stocking it up in a proactive way as was done earlier,” he said.
Another representative from the medical fraternity also said the private sector would prefer to adopt a wait-and-watch policy.

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