Covishield shot to cost ₹400 for states, ₹600 for private hospitals

The India-made Covishield vaccine is cost-effective and much more affordable than other foreign vaccines, which cost anywhere between ₹700 to ₹1,500 a shot, said the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) on Wednesday (April 21).

Covishield will be sold at ₹400 for a single dose to states and at ₹600 to private hospitals, while the stocks to the Centre will continue to be priced at just ₹150 per dose. This means that that it will work out to be the cheapest to get a Covishield shot from Central government hospitals or centres, said a NDTV report.

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In a new directive, the government has set aside 50 per cent of the vaccine doses for the Centre and the rest to be divided between the states and private hospitals. Meanwhile, in a statement released by the SII, the institute urged corporates and individuals to get the vaccines from the state-facilitated machinery and private hospitals since it was “challenging” in this current “complex” scenario to supply the vaccine doses to each one of them separately.

An “additional 1.2 million doses” are required when the country’s vaccination programmes will be opened out to all citizens above the age of 18 on May 1. As states grapple with shortage of vaccines, the government has granted an advance of ₹4,500 crore as aid to Made-in-India vaccine manufacturers SII and Bharat Biotech. Vaccine manufacturers had been seeking financial support from the government to invest in R&D and huge capacity addition.

Also read: Tamil Nadu reports highest wastage of COVID vaccines, says RTI reply

Earlier, SII chief, Adar Poonawalla had said that they will start ramping up production immediately and they will roll out 15 to 20 per cent more doses of Covishield in the market by end of May. However, their “next big ramp up” will be only after July when SII will be able to provide 100 million doses a month.

“After July, it will be 40 per cent… so after July we will cross 100 million doses per month,” Poonawala had told NDTV. The doses will be equally split between the states and private suppliers but the prices for each, including what they offer the Centre would differ.