Serum Institute offers complimentary vaccines to companies taking part in CII drive

Serum Institute of India (SII) has offered complimentary Covid-19 vaccine doses to companies participating in the drive by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to accelerate vaccination in the country. SII will provide these vaccines as a CSR project.

CII had entered into an agreement with SII last month to take vaccines to small towns and rural areas.

SII on Tuesday committed additional complimentary vaccines based on the minimum number of doses procured by corporates. SII’s offer will be valid for August.

It will contribute 1,200 doses free for a minimum order size of 24,000 doses at market price for private players. For a minimum order of 96,000 doses, SII will provide 9,600 free doses, while for an order of 1,92,000 doses it will offer 28,800 free doses. Corporates have to procure the vaccines at Rs 630 per dose (including GST).

The vaccination drive in partnership with industry and healthcare providers, will target communities in small towns and rural areas to ensure wide coverage. CII is working out the vaccination requirements state-wise and is setting up vaccination camps along with its members focusing on reaching Tier-2/3 cities and rural areas.

CII is connecting the community, hospitals and corporates to fast-track vaccination. In the last four weeks, five lakh vaccines were administered in rural parts of Odisha. Tata Steel is holding camps in rural areas of Odisha and Jharkhand, while Medanta is holding a camp to vaccinate 5,000 people in rural Gurugram. Other corporates participating in the initiative include Forbes Marshall, Bajaj Finserv and ITC. Healthcare provides Apollo, Hinduja, Manipal and Medanta are providing vaccinators and administering doses free of cost. They are not charging the Rs 150 administration cost charged at private hospitals.

Earlier, CII had carried out an aggregation of 3,000 corporates and seven million vaccine doses. Around 60% of the vaccines have been administered in May, June and July in four major metros and larger cities. It has so far carried out 430 vaccination camps and administered 3.6 million doses of the vaccine.