Kerala govt to procure vaccines for private hospitals, Rs 126 crore allotted

Thiruvananthapuram: Even as the Kerala government has finished the process to procure 20 lakh vaccine doses for private hospitals, Rs 126 crore will be sanctioned from the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF) for the purchase.

The amount raised through a special fund-raiser will be used to procure these many doses of the Covishield vaccine.

The vaccine purchased by the Kerala Medical Services Corporation will be given to private hospitals at Rs 630 per dose. The private hospitals have to pay this amount to the Corporation. The hospitals will also levy the service charge of Rs 150 for the vaccination from vaccine recipients.

The Tamil Nadu government, meanwhile, is providing the vaccine against COVID-19 free of cost via private hospitals too.

Based on the assurance that the State government will provide the vaccine, the private hospitals had handed over Rs 20 crore to the health department earlier itself.

After the Centre announced that States have to purchase the vaccines to be used for the immunisation drive against COVID-19. Following this, Kerala began a fund-raiser, named the vaccine challenge, and decided to vaccinate the public for free. And donations in this regard were channelled to the CM's relief fund and included under the COVID head in the relief fund.

So far, Rs 775.48 crore has been received. A total of Rs 878.07 crore has been spent so far, including the Rs 450 crore for the distribution of food kits and the Rs 36.36 crore received for the health sector.