On Tuesday, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan requested the Union government to provide free COVID-19 vaccines to all state governments.
This came a day after the Narendra Modi government put the burden of procuring the vaccines for those between 18 and 45 years on the state governments in the third phase of the vaccination drive starting on May 1.
For this, the state governments have to purchase vaccines from the manufacturers, who have been given the nod to sell 50% of their stocks 'in the open market at a pre-declared price'.
This means that the centre's free vaccination will cover only 30 crore people above 45 years and states should buy doses to vaccinate the remaining 100 crore population.
Vijayan's letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted that purchasing the vaccines would put considerable strain on state finances. "The state governments are already facing additional financial commitments from the consequences of the pandemic. Given the present scenario, we have to provide vaccines to the public free of cost. As the economic downturn is still persisting, the additional burden of purchasing the vaccine will place considerable strain on state finances," stated the letter.
Kerala was not the only state to raise concerns about the centre’s new vaccine policy.
Chhattisgarh Health Minister TS Singh Deo said the decision would increase prices of vaccines manifold, while states have to compete with each other in the market to procure vaccines, which may lead to wealthier and enterprising states cornering doses.
Odisha Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra demanded that the Centre should fix the prices of the vaccine as the manufacturers' open market price would be 'very high'.
Millions will be excluded
The main criticism against the Centre's decision was that liberalising vaccine sales would increase the prices of the jabs and exclude millions of poor Indians from the vaccination drive.
R Ramkumar, faculty at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, said that only 30 crore Indians will get free vaccination and the rest will have to pay a substantially higher price. He also noted that the government has not set a ceiling on the prices for the vaccines.
This, he stated, will allow Indian government to use the manufacturer-state government bargaining to hide its failures in planning for vaccines. "It is essentially a gift to the private vaccine makers, with the attendant financial burden seamlessly passed on to the citizens," he tweeted.
Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, and Covaxin, produced by Bharat Biotech, are the two vaccines currently used in India.
Covishield is priced at Rs 150 per dose while Covaxin is sold at Rs 206 per dose, without taxes.
Experts fear that the government decision would cause a huge hike in vaccine prices.
Serum Institute of India's CEO Adar Poonawalla had said in an interview earlier this year that his company's vaccine would cost Rs 1,000 in the private market.
Writing in Scroll.in, Ramkumar argued purchasing two doses for 100 crore people would cost the state government Rs 2 lakh crores. "The most likely outcome is that high vaccine prices will end up excluding millions of people from voluntarily coming forward to take the vaccine," he noted.
This does not augur well for India, which has been lagging in the vaccination drive.
As of April 18, Israel has vaccinated 61.89 per cent of its population, followed by the United Kingdom (48.5%), Chile (40.46%) and the United States (39.24%). India is faring badly, having vaccinated only 7.71% of its population. The situation warrants free vaccines for all.
Else, the country will remain a COVID-19 hotspot and we may have to remain mute spectators while the rest of the world begins fresh innings after the pandemic.
