High Court moved against Centre’s vaccine pricing

‘Health concerns of majority of citizens given a go-by’

A writ petition was on Monday filed in the Kerala High Court challenging the Union government’s Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy which prescribes differential pricing for COVID-19 vaccines. In his petition, C.P. Promod, State secretary of the All India Lawyers Union (AILU) owing allegiance to the CPI(M) pointed out that differential pricing for vaccines was not scientific. Fifty percent of the vaccines was made available to the Union government at the rate of ₹150 a dose. The price of the remaining 50% of vaccines being made available to State governments and others were left to the discretion of the manufacturers, leaving it to the compulsions of market forces. Thus, the health concerns of majority of the citizens were given a go-by. The strategy of the Centre was based on the assumption that liberalised vaccine prices would incentivise manufacturers to rapidly scale up their production and attract new manufacturers. Such strategy was erroneous especially when the country was dealing with a pandemic situation. The Centre should have directed the manufacturers to scale up the production instead of liberalising the prices.