CHENNAI: The Government of India has spent Rs 36,397 crore on 175.41 crore Covid vaccines till July 31, 2023, Minister of State for Health and family welfare Professor SP Baghel told Parliament on Friday.
The biggest payment has been to the Serum Institute of India, the makers of Covishield, who have been handed Rs 25,583 crores ($3 billion) to date. The world's biggest vaccine manufacturer has supplied over 130 crore Covishield doses to the government, implying a price of Rs 197 per dose.
Covaxin makers Bharat Biotech were paid Rs 7,301.28 crores for 35 million doses, while the makers of CorBEvax (a late entrant) -- Biological E Limited -- were paid Rs 1,500 crores for supplying 9.85 million doses. CorBEvax was the cheapest vaccine of the three and was priced at Rs 150.
CorBEvax was developed by the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Baylor College of Medicine, while Covishield is the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine by another name.
CorBEvax is a protein sub-unit COVID-19 vaccine, while Covishield is a viral vector vaccine.
Interestingly, Corbevax is openly licensed and was not patented.
Covaxin, meanwhile, is a whole inactivated virus-based vaccine that Bharat Biotech themselves developed.
In all, 220 crore vaccinations were administered in India, including 45 crore by private hospitals.
Officially, India saw 44.5 million Covid cases with over 5.30 lakh people succumbing to the dreaded pandemic. But some unofficial reports put the death toll much higher - at almost 9.9x - or close to 5 million.
Statewise trends
Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of administered doses of the vaccine against the coronavirus. The state administered 4.4 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines and had a fallout of 8 per cent from the first dose to the second dose. In other words, against 2.3 crore who took the first shot of the vaccine, only 2.1 crore turned up to take the second shot.
But this was better than most Indian states. Next to UP, Bihar administered 1,92,80,377 doses of Covid-19 vaccines.
However, with 99 per cent follow-on rate, Andhra Pradesh stood first among Indian states in ensuring second-dose coverage. On the other hand, Meghalaya stood last with 54 per cent follow-up on the second shot coverage. Most of the Northeastern states also fared poorly in the follow-up percentage.