Congress president Sonia Gandhi has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the current situation of COVID-19 in India.
Sonia Gandhi, in her letter to PM Narendra Modi, has sought GST exemption for all medicines and equipment used for treatment of COVID-19.
“All equipment, instruments, medicines and support infrastructures required to deal with COVID-19 crisis should be made completely exempt from GST,” said Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
“Even ventilators, oximeters and oxygen cylinders presently attract GST as do key life-saving drugs like Remdesivir and Dexamethazone,” added Sonia Gandhi.
Sonia Gandhi said that she had a detailed discussions with the Chief Ministers of the Congress-ruled States over the “most disturbing” COVID-19 situation.
Sonia Gandhi further stressed on the need to ramp up domestic production of COVID-19 vaccines.
“Vaccines are our foremost hope. Sadly, most of the States, are left with a stock of just 3 to 5 days… it will be prudent to allow emergency use authorisation of all vaccine candidates that have the required clearance, without any further delay,” said Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
“…categories eligible for vaccination should be expanded on the basis of need and exposure rather than just age,” Sonia Gandhi added.
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Notably, India on Monday got its third COVID-19 vaccine – Sputnik V, after the Russia made vaccine got emergency approval by the Centre.
India got Sputnik V as the third COVID-19 vaccine as many States in the Country have flagged shortage of Covid-19 vaccine doses.
Sputnik-V claims that it is affordable vaccine and can be “stored at a temperature of +2 to +8°C “.
India is currently using Serum Institute of India (SII)-manufactured Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
With the second wave of COVID-19 hitting India hard, the approval of Sputnik V as the third vaccine in the Country has come as a major relief.
The vaccine approval will help in boosting supplies that were petering out.
Also read: India gets third COVID-19 vaccine, Russia made Sputnik V gets Centre’s emergency approval
India is currently facing the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic with the number of new cases increasing each day.
On Monday, the country hit a new coronavirus infection record with 1,68,912 new cases, the highest single-day rise so far.