Is it true that the Indian government has to spend Rs.80,000 crore towards COVID vaccine in the next few months?

That is the estimate that has been put out by Adar Poonawala, the chairman of Serum Institute, Pune. According to Poonawala, Indian government will have to spend Rs.80,000 crore in next one year to buy and distribute the Coronavirus vaccines across India.

The issue came to light when Poonawala raised this question to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare if the government could manage that kind of funds. In the midst of rising fiscal deficit and dwindling revenues that could be tough.

In fact, the top teams at the Ministry of Health have met number of times to deliberate over financing the procurement and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine. The details of the plan, if any, are yet to be shared by the government. However, Poonawala feels it is urgent.

It may be recollected that Serum Institute is currently conducting the India trials for the Coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca. It has already entered the phase three trials of the vaccine. Cadila and Bharat Biotech are in the midst of phase two.

In the meanwhile the government is also in talks with Russia to facilitate trials for its vaccine Sputnik V in India. But the big challenge of manufacturing these vaccines in bulk in India and distributing them across the country would be the finance and logistics.