Moving ahead with India’s vaccination campaign against coronavirus, those who’ll be vaccinated next are people of age 60 and above, as well as those of ages 45 and above with co-morbidities. They will be inoculated from March 1 onwards, said Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, reported ANI. 

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They will be vaccinated at 10,000 government and more than 20,000 private vaccination centres. Vaccines will be available free of cost at government facilities, the Minister said.

While those who wish to get vaccinated at private hospitals will have to pay for which the amount will be decided by the Union Health Ministry in the next three to four days. The matter is under discussion with the manufacturers and hospitals, Javadekar said.

India started the first phase of its mass vaccination drive against COVID-19 on January 16. More than 1.2 million people have received at least one dose of either of the two vaccines approved by India. 

India has approved the emergency use of Serum Institute’s ‘Coronil’ and Bharat Biotech’s ‘Covaxin’. 

Coronil was developed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca in a collaboration with the University of Oxford. It’s being manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India.

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Covaxin is the indigenous vaccine developed by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.