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The Government of India has announced opening up of the vaccination drive to all persons above the age of 18 with effect from 1 st May 2021; this momentous decision coming after a marathon meeting by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with doctors, medical scientists and experts on 19 th April 2021, significantly the day that saw the highest ever rise in new daily COVID-19 cases to the tune of over 2, 73,000. An important aspect of a liberalized format under this decision is that the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers can sell 50% of their doses to the Government of India and the rest 50% doses to the Indian states directly in the open market. This effectively means that all the states can now purchase vaccine doses directly and can prioritize how and to whom they would want the jabs administered. The concerned pharmaceutical firms have said that they would come with the pricing within the deadline of the 1 st of May.   In view of the acute shortage of vaccine doses in several states and

The first phase of COVID-19 vaccination in India that started from the 16 th of January 2021 aimed at inoculating around 30 million healthcare sector and frontline workers. Although so far only about half of that target and less for those having double doses has been achieved the Government of India, under pressure to speed up the process allowing participation of the private sector and also in view of the surge in new infections in several states, has decided to usher in the second phase of vaccination that aims at administering the jabs to senior citizens above 60 and people above 45 years of age with comorbidities; as per the earlier estimates this target population will be around 270 million which, of course, targeted all people above 50 with or without comorbidities. The policy decision to allow the private sector come into the picture is the welcome change in Vaccination 2.0 which is bound to accelerate the number of jabs administered, and the process begins from tomorrow, the 1