Telangana govt permits vaccination for above 18 years in private hospitals

Hyderabad: The Telangana government on Tuesday permitted COVID-19 vaccination for people above 18 years in private hospitals.

The private hospitals which have designated private COVID-19 vaccination centres in the state can no administer vaccines to eligible individuals.

The State government also permitted private hospitals to conduct vaccination drives in workplaces (on request made by institutions/ companies/gated companies etc) by registering on CoWIN portal and following COVID-19 vaccination guidelines.

Earlier, the State govenrment had kept the process of administering vaccines at PCVCs to individuals above 18 years in abeyance. On Tuesday, the health department also restarted administering second dose of Covid vaccines to eligible individuals across all the government COVID-19 vaccine centres.

After a gap of 10 days, the second dose vaccination for beneficiaries above the age of 45 years resumed in the state on Tuesday. The eligible beneficiaries above 45 years due for the second dose were being given the jab at government-run vaccination centers.

The vaccination which was halted due to increase in the gap for two Covishield doses, besides shortage in vaccines, was resumed upon instructions of chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. KCR, in a high level meeting on Monday, ordered the vaccination be resumed for 45+ years beneficiaries and also asked them to ramp up testing samples for COVID-19.