Acquiring vaccine to be tough task for States

Anticipating the shortages, many States including Telangana had recently gone for global tenders

Hyderabad: Ensuring Covid vaccines are available to eligible individuals at private and government hospitals in Telangana and other States will continue to remain a major challenge for authorities in the coming months. Sector experts have indicated that difficulties in ensuring a steady supply in Covid vaccines will remain till July end in the country. As a result, both private and government hospitals are expected to struggle to ramp up vaccinations in their respective facilities, not just in Telangana but across the nation.

Anticipating these shortages, many States including Telangana had recently gone for global tenders. However, despite opting for global tenders, top vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson and Moderna have refused to engage with individual States. In fact, according to several media reports, international vaccine manufacturers have clearly indicated that they would prefer to deal with a single entity i.e. the Centre, which will aggregate the number of vaccines needed to each State and hold discussions on the pricing. All the major international vaccine manufacturers are already tied up with their previous commitments to supply Covid vaccines to Europe and the United States.

---

At the moment, the best way to make Covid vaccines available for all is to ensure the Centre plays an important role in negotiations with vaccine manufacturers. States entering directly into contracts with global vaccine developers is leading to competition among them. “Poorer States with high populations would not be able to vaccinate themselves quickly. Meanwhile, richer States may have to pay a much steeper price for vaccines. We recommend that the Centre in coordination with the States should enter into deals with these companies so that we can vaccinate a sizable population,” said Group Chief Economic Adviser, Dr Soumya Kanti Ghosh, State Bank of India, in a recent paper on vaccination procurement.

Experts also point out that India should ideally follow European Union (EU) template of acquiring Covid vaccines for its population. Globally, the EU has formed a Joint Negotiation Team to carry out talks with vaccine suppliers. Similarly, major African countries too have come together to form African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) and negotiate on Covid vaccines.