SII prices COVID-19 vaccine at Rs 600 for pvt hospitals, Rs 400 for state govts

With India firmly in the midst of the second COVID-19 wave, the need and demand for coronavirus vaccines have skyrocketed. Now with the vaccination to be opened to people above the age of 18 in India from May 1, this demand is only going to increase further.

That being said, the Serum Institute of India (SII), has welcomed the recent announcement made by the Government of India’s Ministry of Health and Finance Ministry to accelerate India’s vaccination drive, as per an official media statement.

According to them, the directives will help scale up vaccine production and allow state governments, private hospitals, and vaccination centres to procure vaccines directly.

“For the next two months, we will address the limited capacity by scaling up the vaccine production. Going ahead, 50 percent of our capacities will be served to the Government of India's vaccination programme, and the remaining 50 percent of the capacity will be for the state governments and private hospitals,” the statement said.

Further, it also announced the prices of the vaccines following the directives by the Government of India.

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The institute’s Covishield vaccine will now be available at Rs 400 for state governments and Rs 600 for private hospitals. As compared, American vaccines will cost more than Rs 1,500, and Russian and Chinese vaccines will be priced at over Rs 750.

“Considering the global vaccine prices, we are ensuring that our vaccines are affordable in comparison to any other vaccines in the world,” the statement said.

It further added, “Owing to the complexity, and urgency of the situation it is challenging to supply it independently to each corporate entity. We would urge all corporate and private individuals to access the vaccines through the state facilitated machinery and private health systems. Post four to five months, the vaccines will be made available in retail and free trade.”

Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech that is producing the other official vaccine, Covaxin will be producing over 30 million doses of the same in the coming month to support India’s vaccination campaign.