In order to ramp up the
speed of Covid-19 vaccination drive amid the hard times, Adar Poonawalla, CEO
of Serum Institute of India has announced Rs 100 slash in vaccine price for the
States.
Now states will have to pay Rs 300 instead of Rs 400 per dose to get the Covid-19 vaccine developed by SII in collaboration with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca.
However, the decision has come few days after Bharat Biotech decided to cap the price of Covaxin for the states at Rs 600 so the vast majority of masses can be inoculated against the contagious virus.
According to Poonawalla, the decision is a philanthropic gesture on behalf of SII and the new price will come into effect immediately. He further added that his decision would help save thousands of crores of state funds and will enable more vaccinations thus, more lives can be saved.
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Pertinently, SII is the world’s largest vaccine maker and has obtained orders for 340 million doses from states and 20 million doses from India’s private hospitals. Also, the SII is clearing the outstanding orders from the various state governments.
According to the sources within SII, the vaccine maker is planning to begin doses supply in the next four days. States including Maharashtra is among the one which would receive the doses latest by this week. However, the states that have placed their orders will have to wait for some 3 weeks.