Piles of unused COVID-19 jabs near expiry, private hospitals turn to government for bailout

(Representational image)

Private hospitals across India, which are struggling to find takers for COVID-19 vaccine doses procured by them, are now asking the Centre to buy the unused vaccines, instead of from vaccine makers, as a large number of doses are set to expire by March-April this year.

These hospitals are also peeved that the Health Ministry did not act on the promise of exporting nearly 50 lakh vaccine doses by December 2021, which it had promised.
Since the country started the immunisation drive against coronavirus on January 16, 2021, 170 crore COVID vaccine doses have been administered. However, only 4-5 percent have been administered in private hospitals, according to the Economic Survey tabled in Parliament last week.

The low vaccine utilisation in private hospitals has been primarily due to the high price vaccines, which was aimed at incentivising both private health facilities as well as vaccine makers. The jabs are offered for free at government centres.

Most private vaccination centres normally charge Rs 780 for a Covishield dose and Rs 1,410 for Covaxin.‘Poor response to even vaccination for adolescents’

As per the Centre’s COVID vaccination strategy, 25 percent of the total vaccines available in India can be procured by private hospitals. In reality, their actual procurement since July last year has been much lower, owing to the rapidly falling demand.

Girdhar J Gyani, director-general of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India, a network of private hospitals in the country, told Moneycontrol that in states like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, the response to vaccination for even adolescents has been poor.

“That’s because the governments, both at the Centre and the states, are very aggressively promoting vaccination for 15-17 year-olds,” he said. “If the shots are being administered for free at government facilities, why would anyone want to pay Rs 1,250- Rs 1,410 per dose at a private centre?”

As of now, only Covaxin, the COVID vaccine by Bharat Biotech, is permitted for adolescents in the country.

This, he said, has led to a pile of Covaxin doses in private hospitals, as many hospitals had procured them, hoping that the vaccination for the 15-17 year-olds will draw adolescents to private facilities.

Expiry date cause for concern

“Now, a large number of these doses are about to expire and many hospitals are panicking,” Gyani added. “We want the government to intervene and help us by lifting these vaccine doses. If they cannot be exported, they should be used at the government vaccination centres. We are writing to the government to help us immediately.”

Sources in the Health Ministry explained that the government could not fulfil its promise of buying and supplying COVID vaccines to other countries as the duration of just a month before the expiry date is too less.

“No country will want to buy vaccines with such close expiry dates. Therefore, we could not help private hospitals in this regard,” said an official.