Thousands of patients have received inflated bills across the country. Our personal tragedy underscores the need to rethink India’s privately owned healthcare industry and restrain rampant profiteering.
A new change in regulation has resurfaced old wounds about vaccine prices in India.
At Rs1,200 ($16.42) a dose, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, a Covid-19 vaccine fully developed and manufactured in India, is the most pricey option available at private hospitals in India. The vaccine is not only more expensive than the other locally manufactured option, Covishield, but costs more than even the imported Sputnik V.
Covaxin’s pricing is “nothing but governmental sanction for Bharat Biotech to make super profits,” says Malini Aisola, co-convener of the All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), an independent collective of healthcare professionals and nonprofits. “These unethically inflated prices have no correlation to its cost of production,” she says.
Around the world, from Bangladesh to Nepal to Rwanda, vulnerable hotspots have been grappling with stalled Covid-19 vaccination programs as they run out of doses. Many of those shortages can be traced back to a single company: The Serum Institute of India.
The world’s largest vaccine maker, Serum was last year named a top supplier of Covid shots to Covax, the World Health Organization-backed initiative aimed at securing an equitable global rollout. But the Indian company has been dogged by setbacks, from a ban on exports to a factory fire, that have hampered its ability to fill orders.
Covax has pledged to send shots to some 92 countries, but has so far received only 30 million of the minimum 200 million doses it ordered from Serum, which was to provide the bulk of its early supply. Serum’s travails have now become a key illustration of how the effort to inoculate against Covid has failed the developing world and a cautionary tale for becoming over-reliant on one manufacturer
Problems at Biggest Vaccine Maker Leave World Short on Covid Shots Bloomberg 4 hrs ago Chris Kay and P R Sanjai
(Bloomberg) Around the world, from Bangladesh to Nepal to Rwanda, vulnerable hotspots have been grappling with stalled Covid-19 vaccination programs as they run out of doses. Many of those shortages can be traced back to a single company: The Serum Institute of India.
The world’s largest vaccine maker, Serum was last year named a top supplier of Covid shots to Covax, the World Health Organization-backed initiative aimed at securing an equitable global rollout. But the Indian company has been dogged by setbacks, from a ban on exports to a factory fire, that have hampered its ability to fill orders.