The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India and its severity have unfolded a race between the private vaccine manufacturers in trading their vaccines in the public market under the guise of vaccinating the people as part of the government's vaccination drive. The race was triggered by Prime Minister Modi's announcement that the vaccine manufacturers can sell 50% of doses to the state governments and private hospitals while reserving 50% to the Central government. 

Days after the Serum Institute of India increased the price of its Covishield vaccine in marketing to the state governments and private hospitals, Bharat Biotech has now announced its prices for Covaxin. The Hyderabad-based company has said that it has fixed the price of Covaxin at Rs 600 per dose for state governments and at Rs 1,200 per dose for private hospitals. According to reports, the hike in prices of Covaxin will come to effect on May 1st, and the price of Covaxin is more expensive than Serum Institute's Covishield. 

In a statement, Bharat Biotech Chairman and Managing Director Krishna M Ella said that the company is supplying the vaccine to the Central government at Rs 150 per dosage and more than 50 percent of the capacities have been reserved for the Central government supplies. The statement said, "We are deeply concerned by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in India and the world. We sincerely wish for the safety and good health of everyone". 

"Bharat Biotech is honored to develop, manufacture, and supply Covaxin for India's vaccine rollout at Rs.150 per dose, which is distributed for free by the Govt. of India. We would like to state that more than 50% of our capacities have been reserved for Central Government supplies", the company added. It has further announced the price of Covaxin as per the directive of the Indian government. 

It will sell the vaccine to the state governments at Rs. 600 per dose and Rs. 1200 per dose for the private hospitals. The company will be exporting the vaccine at $15-$20 per dose. In a statement, Krishna Ella said, "Recovering cost is essential in the journey of innovation towards other vaccines such as Intranasal COVID-19, Chikungunya, Zika, Cholera, and others. Our core mission for the last 25 years has been to provide affordable, yet world-class healthcare solutions for the globe."

The sudden announcement of increasing the price has sparked outrage across the country as the increase has come at a high time when the nation is at peak of the COVID-19 cases. Several opposition leaders had questioned the difference in prices for states and the Union government and called for vaccines to be free for all. Though some of the states had decided to provide free vaccinations,  the price increase would push the already debt-trodden governments to endure more financial deficits while the private hospitals will charge high from the patients who come to receive vaccines. 

Earlier, the Serum Institute of India has announced the price for its Covishield and the vaccine will be sold to the state governments at a price of Rs 400 per dose and Rs 600 per dose for private hospitals. The company had said that it will address the issue of limited capacity by scaling up the vaccine production for the next two months. 

The Serum Institute said, "Going ahead, 50 percent of our capacities will be served to the Government of India's vaccination programme, and the remaining 50 percent of the capacity will be for the state governments and private hospitals". The Center will unveil the third phase of the vaccination from May 1st during which it will concentrate on vaccinating people above 18 years of age. The traffic of the third phase of the vaccination is expected to be high as India has around 60 crore people living in this age category. 

The third phase will also witness the dearth of vaccines and the increase in prices will also put a break to the Center's campaign for vaccination as the people would be concerned to go to private hospitals to get the dose by paying more. The private vaccine makers are in the race to trade their vaccines in the public market when people need the vaccines to fight the pandemic. Several states including Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh had announced that the vaccination drive beginning on May 1 for the people between 18 and 45 will be free of cost.