Govt To Purchase 5 Crore Doses Of Corbevax Vaccine; Will It Be Used As Booster?

New Delhi: The Union government has placed an order with Biological E to purchase 5 crore doses of Corbevax COVID-19 vaccine.

The cost of each dose is Rs 145, excluding GST, PTI reported quoting official sources.

There was speculation that the Centre is mulling adding Corbevax to the country’s vaccination regime. No decision has yet been taken on which segment of beneficiaries Corbevax will be administered to.

Discussions are underway in technical groups and Union Health Ministry’s immunisation division on expanding booster doses, which was launched in India a month ago for healthcare and frontline workers, and senior citizens with comorbidities.

Those receiving the third ‘precaution’ dose, as described by Prime Minister Narendra Modi while announcing the launch, are getting the same vaccine as their first two doses.

HLL Lifecare Limited, a public sector undertaking, has issued the Corbevax order to Biological E on behalf of the Union Health Ministry.

The Hyderabad-based company is expected to supply the vaccines by February.

The Drugs Controller General of India approved Corbevax, the country’s first indigenously developed RBD protein sub-unit vaccine against COVID-19, for restricted emergency use among above-18 category in late December.

Corbevax is a two-dose vaccine to be administered 28 days apart.