Covid-19 vaccine: Family members of employees eligible for vaccination at workplaces

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Employees of private and state entities are now eligible to get family members vaccinated at the workplace, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on May 21.

In a fresh advisory, the Union Health Ministry clarified that Covid-19 vaccination at Workplace (government and private) will now be extended to the family members and dependents of the workers. This means the employee, their spouse, children, parents and other dependents will now be allowed to get vaccinated according to each company’s internal policy on Covid vaccination.

“For the Industrial and Private Covid Vaccination Centers (CVCs), to cover the beneficiaries, the vaccine doses will have to be procured by the private hospitals with whom the respective employer tied up for vaccination,” advisory stated.

Meanwhile, for the government CVCs, beneficiaries aged 45 years and above would be covered through the free vaccine doses supplied by the Centre to the States/UTs. Those in the age group 18 to 44 years will be covered through vaccine doses directly procured from the vaccine manufacturer by the State/UT administration, the health ministry said.

This decision comes after several companies took up the issue to the MOHFW and expressed concerns over limiting vaccination just to the employees. They stated that the problem won’t be resolved unless the family members living with the employees also got vaccinated in time.

Many companies, both public and private, have already announced vaccination drives for employees and their dependents.