Gujarat XE Variant
Gujarat reports first case of XE variant of COVID-19
Vadodara: A Covid-19 XE variant infection case has been reported from Gujarat, media reports said on Saturday, just a day after the Centre expanded the availability of precaution doses.
The XE variant of coronavirus, a more infectious but not more severe than the Omicron variety, has been found in Gujarat, a highly placed official confirmed to The Hindu.
Meanwhile, A day before the rollout of precaution doses for the population aged between 18 and 59 years, the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers have slashed the price of jabs by more than half.
Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech announced on Saturday that they will provide Covishield and Covaxin to private hospitals at Rs 225 per dose.
While Covishield till now cost Rs 600, a dose of Covaxin was priced at Rs 1,200.
Earlier in the day, the Centre announced that the private hospitals can charge up to Rs 150 over the cost of vaccines as a service charge for vaccination.
After adding the service charge and 5 per cent VAT levied on the vaccines, a dose of both Covishield and Covaxin is likely to cost less than Rs 390 to a beneficiary.
The Union Government announced yesterday that the precaution doses of Covid-19 vaccines will be available for populations above 18 years of age from April 10 only at Private Covid Vaccination Centres.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
Support objective journalism for a small contribution.
