Shawdesh Desk:

The Indian Centre government has placed an order to procure 66 crore more doses of Covishield and Covaxin to be supplied between August and December this year, at a revised price of Rs 205 and Rs 215 per dose, respectively, excluding taxes, official sources said.

They said 37.5 crore of Covishield doses from the Serum Institute of India and 28.5 crore Covaxin doses from Bharat Biotech will be procured by December.

The Union health ministry which was procuring both the vaccines at Rs 150 per dose, had indicated that the prices would be revised after the new COVID-19 vaccine procurement policy came into effect from June 21.

Under the new policy, the ministry will procure 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced by the drug manufacturers in the country, PTI reported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the revision of the vaccine guidelines on June 8.

Domestic vaccine manufacturers are given the option to provide 25 per cent of their monthly production of vaccines to private hospitals.

Any wastage of vaccine will affect the allocation negatively.

More than 41.69 crore vaccine doses have been provided to states and UTs so far, through all sources, the health ministry said on Saturday.