Huge response to COVID-19 shots for 12-14 age group; private hospitals keep away

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In less than a week since India launched a COVID-19 vaccination drive for those aged 12 to 14 years, nearly 5.5 million shots have been administered to adolescents across the country.

The number of citizens in this age group is estimated at nearly 49.7 million so that means over 11 percent of 12-14-year-olds have already received one dose of the COVID-19 shot.

Curiously, all the COVID-19 vaccine doses for this age group have been administered by government hospitals. Private hospitals have shown no interest in administering Corbevax, the vaccine made by Hyderabad-based Biological E Limited and approved for use on 12-14-year-olds.

The main reason, according to executives at private hospitals, is that private healthcare providers have been struggling to use up their stocks of Covishield and Covaxin, the two vaccines extensively used in India’s COVID-19 vaccination programme for adults.

Nearly 100 million Corbevax doses are required for adolescents under the vaccine regime that specifies two shots for each individual to be administered 28 days apart.

Repeated requests to the Centre by private hospitals to buy unused vaccines nearing their expiry dates have gone unheeded, said Girdhar J Gyani, director-general of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India, a network of private hospitals.

As a result, he told Moneycontrol, several hospital chains tied up with companies and provided COVID-19 jabs under their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

Many hospitals that procured additional doses of Covaxin when the COVID-19 vaccination drive for the 15-17-year age group began in January have been confronting a bigger crisis, Gyani said.

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For many hospitals, the huge difference in price at which Corbevax is being offered to the government and private sector is also a major concern.

Pricing deterrent 

Biological E announced last week that Corbevax had been supplied to the government at Rs 145 per dose and that the private sector would be charged Rs 990 per dose (including the Goods and Services Tax).

That’s a big difference in price, said Dr HK Mahajan, a senior doctor with the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre. Dr Aashish Chaudhary, managing director of Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital, agreed.

"As the vaccine is costly in the private sector, people are hesitant to pay such a hefty amount and prefer to have themselves vaccinated at a government facility where it is free,” Dr Chaudhary said. “As a result, there are few private hospitals willing to place large vaccine orders.”

Supply issues 

Dr Mahajan also flagged supply issues that are keeping private hospitals away from the initiative.

“While 90 percent of the vaccine supply is meant for government hospitals, only 10 percent is available to the private hospitals. That is why the private hospitals seem uninterested,” he said.

When contacted, government officials said Biological E, which has developed Corbevax in association with US-based Baylor College and Texas Children’s Hospital, was the first company to receive advance payment of Rs 1,500 crore from the Centre even prior to regulatory approval for the vaccine.

As a result, soon after the vaccine received emergency use authorisation from the Drug Controller General of India, the government procured 50 million shots.

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A mail seeking the company's comment on the matter remained unanswered.

Unused vaccines nearing expiry 

By the time the Centre started supplying large consignments of COVID-19 vaccines to the states beginning June last year, private hospitals had procured a significant quantity at government authorised prices, said Ayanabh DebGupta, a member of the health services committee at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

But as abundant vaccine supplies started being available for free in government hospitals, there was a dip in the number of people receiving the jab at private facilities, said Debgupta who is also co-founder and joint manager of the Medica group of hospitals.

At Medica hospitals, for instance, there are over Rs 20 crore worth of unused vaccine stocks nearing expiry within a couple of months.

“I am sure the numbers are similar if not more across most of the other large hospitals,” he said.  “Given this context, most private hospitals today are extremely apprehensive of procuring the children’s COVID-19 vaccine.”

Doubt over the need of COVID vaccine for children 

 DebGupta pointed out that the younger age groups have been the least vulnerable to the SARS CoV- 2 virus so far.

Also, there is not enough research data available in the public domain to establish a significant correlation in terms of large-scale antibody development among children post-vaccination.

“That also puts a question mark on the overall efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccination program for children, especially for the prevailing variants,” he said, adding that these factors make procuring the vaccine an unattractive option for private healthcare providers.