Govt needs Rs80,000 crore over next year to vaccinate everyone against Covid-19: SII chief

India might want to spend round Rs80,000 crore over the subsequent 12 months to offer the Sars-Cov-2 vaccine to all its residents, the chief government of Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) mentioned in a tweet on Saturday, whereas asking the federal government whether or not it’s ready for such funding.

SII is the world’s largest vaccine producer and has partnered with a number of vaccine producers which have candidates in medical trials, together with a broadly watched one by Oxford University and AstraZeneca. If any of those vaccines are authorized, SII is predicted to supply round 400mn of them by the top of the 12 months.

“Quick question; will the government of India have 80,000 crores available, over the next one year? Because that’s what @MoHFW_INDIA needs, to buy and distribute the vaccine to everyone in India. This is the next concerning challenge we need to tackle,” mentioned SII’s CEO Adar Poonawalla, whereas additionally tagging the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) twitter deal with.

He was fast so as to add one other tweet explaining the explanation behind him asking the query.

“I ask this question, because we need to plan and guide, vaccine manufacturers both in India and overseas to service the needs of our country in terms of procurement and distribution,” Poonawalla mentioned.

Officials within the PMO refused to answer queries on the tweet.

Experts indicated the federal government might want to step in over the pricing challenge as properly. “Forget about it. The vaccine will have to be taken over by govt and reasonably priced providing it free to the poor and govt health care givers… the rest pay and buy as per the administered price. Can perhaps be covered under Insurance to be examined,” Okay Sujatha Rao, former secretary of well being and household welfare ministry, mentioned in reply to Poonawalla’s tweet.

It was not instantly clear how Poonawalla arrived on the determine.