Amid disquiet over the Bharatiya Janata Party promising free COVID-19 vaccines in its Bihar manifesto, Telangana Health Minister Eatala Rajender on Friday, 23 October, said that the state’s poor residents would get the vaccine free of cost, as and when it is approved, reported The News Minute.
Rajendar, in an interview to The Times of India, said that the vaccine will also be given free of cost to healthcare workers in both private and government sectors, while adding that there was no need to commercialise it.
According to Rajender, states and the Centre must ensure that the poor have free access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
The cost of the vaccine, the minister said, does not matter and should be given free to those visiting government hospitals. He also added that a new committee has been formed to decide how the vaccine would be distributed.
Apart from Bihar and Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Assam have promised to distribute vaccines free of cost for every resident of the state.
(With inputs from The News Minute & The Times of India)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)