Covishield pricing whips up a political storm
April 22, 2021
The concerns are over vaccine equity and that some States would get left behind. Serum Institute of India (SII) chief executive Adar Poonawalla has stirred a hornet’s nest, politically, with the pricing structure he recently announced for Covishield vaccine.
A day after SII announced that Covishield would be priced at ₹400/dose for States and ₹600/dose for private hospitals, key political voices, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and DMK leader MK Stalin, have been raised against the “differential pricing mechanism”. The concern was over vaccine equity, and whether some States would get left behind.
Opposition continues to target Centre over ‘differential pricing’ for vaccines
April 22, 2021
SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA / The Hindu - The Hindu×
Sonia Gandhi slams Modi government in a letter; Mamata, Stalin call for ‘one vaccine price’
The “differential pricing mechanism” of the vaccines has created a storm as almost all the Opposition parties have urged the Centre to review it, amid rising Covid 19 cases and the scarcity in supply and production of the vaccines.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention on this issue. In a letter to Modi, she asked the Centre to set a goal that “everyone over 18 years is given the vaccine”, regardless of their economic circumstances.