These are the new prices for COVID-19 booster doses as India begins a third shot for adults

• Vaccine manufacturers of India announced a major price slash in the COVID-19 vaccine effective from April 10.
• Both the vaccine houses have reduced their vaccine prices to ₹225 per dose.
• However, private hospitals or private vaccination centres can charge upto ₹150 as an additional charge over and above the vaccination charges.

As the government rolled out the precautionary dose or booster dose for all adults, vaccine manufacturers in India — Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech — announced a major slash in their vaccine prices, which will be effective from April 10.

Both the vaccine houses have reduced their vaccine prices to ₹225 per dose. These are the new prices —


However, private hospitals or private vaccination centres can charge upto ₹150 as an additional charge over and above the vaccination charges. The total amount to be paid will be visible on the CoWin website — an online portal to book your COVID-19 vaccine slots.

“Private centres must declare the price per dose chargeable by them on Co-WIN, in accordance with the prices declared by the manufacturers,” said Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary, in guidelines to the states.

The precautionary dose will be available for the revised prices at the private vaccination centres. However, the priority groups — healthcare workers, and people above the age of 60 years can still get their third dose free of cost at the government hospitals or government vaccination centres.

All the adults above the age of 18 years will now be eligible to get their third dose only if nine months or 39 weeks have passed since their second dose of the vaccine. This means that those who got their second dose before July 9, 2021, or earlier are now eligible for the third dose.

The CoWin app will also send SMS alerts to all citizens who become eligible for the third shot depending upon their previous vaccination dates, informed the Union Health Secretary.

“Eligible citizens can avail of walk-in vaccination, wherein private vaccination centres can add beneficiaries onsite to an ongoing vaccination session for precaution dose. For this the PCVC (private COVID vaccination centre) team can locate the existing vaccination record of the citizen by searching on the mobile number, beneficiary reference ID, or the details of Identity Document used at the time of earlier vaccinations,” said the Health Ministry.

The ministry also informed that the people will get the same vaccine — Covishiel or Covaxin — as the one they got before.

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