India may not procure Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine

There are reports that central government may not procure Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine. Although the vaccine found to be 95 percent effective in preventing the Covid-19 infection, its high cost posed a major setback for the immunisation drive in India.

Officials have indicated that India may not prefer Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine over the other options available to the country for the prevention of Covid-19.

On December 13, coronavirus vaccine vials of Pfizer made their way to distribution site across the United States. The coronavirus vaccine shots are expected to be given to health care workers and nursing home residents in the US beginning Monday.

The same scenario won’t happen anytime soon in India, as the cost of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is one of the primary reasons for it. At $37 i.e, Rs 2,728, the coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by Pfizer is much more expensive compared to the other vaccine candidates such as Oxford-AstraZeneca ‘Covishield’ and the $10 (Rs 737) vaccine candidate developed by Russia.

Bernstein analysts have said that assuming the cost per vial of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to be at $3 (Rs 220.95), India may procure 680 million doses of the vaccine which would cost the country $1.9 billion. However, if the cost of Pfizer’s vaccine remains at $13, it would cost the country 12 times more. According to a report in Business Standard, Pfizer has said the company would only sell through government contracts.