
This taken at the Rs 200 per dose price quoted by Serum Insitute means an order worth Rs 220 crore, which apparently is an amount to be spent under the PM Cares Fund.
This raises new questions, will this free Serum to start exporting, which apparently will be a much more lucrative market for the company. It has already entered into an arrangement to supply in all some 100 million doses to GAVI- the global vaccine alliance vaccine at the rate of $3 per dose.
The other two questions that emerge are from where is the government planning to procure the other 589 million doses? Will they all be from Bharat Biotech? Can Bharat Biotech supply as many? And whether the vaccination rollout will be in a trial mode for many? Or is it that the order placed with Serum is first among the orders to be placed with the company and more are to follow. There is so far no information from Bharat Biotech on this though in the press conference held recently after the company was given the emergency use authorization, Bharat Biotech founder Dr Krishna Ella confined himself to saying the government was talking to them.
These and several other questions continue to emerge as long as there is no clarity from the government on its plans on procurement and distribution. The supplier of the vaccine will have to dispatch the vaccines to the designated locations and incur all the costs involved, which apparently is included in the price paid for the vaccine procurement.
As experts in the sector have often been saying on the vaccine rollout, a lot of confusion around the actual delivery of the vaccine, its procurement and the concerns of the healthcare professionals on the vaccine in question will all be addressed if there is little more transparency.
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