Hyderabad: In a significant development with regard to free immunization from COVID-19 for Telangana’s population, the state government on Tuesday requested Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech to give priority for maximum supply of the Covaxin vaccine doses. The Centre had recently announced that vaccines can be administered to anyone over 18 years of age from May 1.
After the announcement, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had stated that everyone in the state will be given the COVID-19 vaccine for free. On Tuesday, Telangana chief secretary Somesh Kumar met Bharat Biotech chairman and managing director (CMD) Krishna Ella at BRKR Bhavan to discuss modalities.
The state government had announced last week that it will administer the COVID-19 vaccine free of cost to all people aged above 18 years. KCR had stated that the state will spend Rs 2,500 crore on the vaccination programme considering the importance of lives of the people.
The chief secretary requested Bharat Biotech’s CMD to provide the Covaxin vaccine and give more doses of vaccines to the state for the purpose. Bharat Biotech limited has responded positively, said the state government in a press release, to accord priority to Telangana in providing COVID-19 vaccine. The company has assured the state government that Telangana be given maximum number of doses of vaccine.