NEW DELHI: Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Tuesday said that funding for the Covid-19 vaccine by the government will come from multiple sources and it will ink purchase agreement only after companies demonstrate adequate safety and efficacy.
One option before countries, said Bhushan, is to provide advanced market assistance while the other is to provide financial help to vaccine manufacturers for conducting their research and development.
“This financial support may not come directly from the government but from financial institutions,” the official said.
In India, he said, through the department of biotechnology, financial assistance is being provided already to designated vaccine makers to assist in their R&D including pre-clinical and may get extended to clinical trials later.
“The other options are also on the table and are under active consideration of the government,” he added. “Going ahead, the price of single-dose and two-dose vaccines will evolve and we have seen that in extremely dynamic situations prices (of vaccines or drugs) can change significantly. Therefore, agreements can be reached only once the vaccines prove their safety and efficacy.”
The health secretary also suggested that if multiple vaccines are proved to be effective, their prices will decline drastically.
“So as of now we will not speculate on the pricing part but I want to reiterate that sufficient financial resources are available with the government to go for this kind of procurement,” said Bhushan.
At present, vaccine candidates by Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute of India (Oxford University-AstraZeneca), and Zydus Cadila are under advance stages of trials while a trial by Hyderabad based Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories to test the efficacy of Russia’s Sputnik V, in Indian volunteers, is also set to begin soon.