<span style="color: #222222;">Union Health Ministry has said the Central Government is consistently and proactively working to secure and enhance the availability of vaccines. It dismissed reports appeared in a section of media followed by some uninformed tweets alleging delay in licensing for Covaxin and delayed approval for technology transfer for manufacturing COVAXIN vaccine in the country. The Health Ministry said that these news reports and the content mentioned in the tweet are completely baseless and factually incorrect.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">It said, the New "Liberalized Pricing and Accelerated National Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy" aims at liberalized vaccine pricing and scaling up of vaccine coverage to incentivize vaccine manufacturers to rapidly augment their production and to attract new  manufacturers. It would make pricing, procurement and administration of vaccines more flexible and ensure increased vaccine production as well as wider availability of vaccines in the country.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The Ministry said, as part of its policy to augment the domestic production of Covid-19 vaccine, the government has proactively encouraged Public Sector Undertakings as well as private companies to enter into technology transfer agreements with Indian vaccine manufacturers. Two Central Government PSUs, namely, Indian Immunologicals Ltd (IIL) and BIBCOL have entered into a technology transfer agreement with Bharat Biotech. In addition, one State Government Undertaking, namely, Haffkine Institute, has also entered into a technology transfer agreement with Bharat Biotech. All these technology transfer agreements have been actively promoted and assisted by Government of India.The Ministry said, as a result of this proactive intervention of the Central Government, Indian Immunologicals Limited will be in a position to start production of Covaxin from September 2021, while Haffkine Institute and BIBCOL will start production of Covaxin from November this year. The Ministry said, under  the new policy, 100 percent doses of imported and ready to use foreign vaccine will be available for other than Government of India channel comprising State Governments, private hospitals and hospitals of industrial establishments. It also added that Government of India is proactively engaging with foreign vaccine manufacturers like Moderna and Pfizer to apply for Emergency Use Authorization in India so that these vaccines can be easily imported and made available in India.</span><br />''