India to get 10 Crore COVID Vaccines by December

Things are looking up for the future for COVID vaccines, but what about the price?

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines are currently being prepared and are under-going the final tests in India. It is probable that the vaccine will be approved for use by December. The trials are being done by Serum Institute of India (SII) who believe that the approval is soon to come and have already begun stockpiling more than 4 Crore Vaccines and are expected to have 10 Crore by the end of the year.

As soon as the vaccine gains the approval the first dose will be given to the elderly and the frontline workers. The vaccine should roll out to the masses of India by end January 2021 or early February. The nation would need about 50-60 crore vaccines in total and 25-30 crore for the priority population, which would focus on people living in more populated and dense regions.

The vaccine has shown signs of preventing about 70% of people from catching the virus. The government will launch the vaccines under the umbrella of Covishield and it will be administered in 2 dosages. If the 2 doses are taken within the span of a month then the effectiveness of the vaccine is at 90% and when more than a month has passed between the doses the effectiveness drops to 62%.

The combined analysis of the two dosages' effectiveness comes to an average fo 70%. The Covishield vaccines will probably be charged for about 500-600 Rs. for the market and 200-300 Rs. for the government. These are significantly cheaper prices. As Moderna is pricing the vaccine for more than 2500 Rs. and Pfizer for 1500 Rs.

The Pfizer vaccine also shows serious storage problems. Their dose needs a storage -70 Degrees Celsius. Many countries other than UK and US do not have the facility to store items at temperatures below -40 Degree Celsius. This problem is eliminated by the Oxford-AstarZeneca vaccine which has allowed storage temperatures to range between 2-8 Degree Celsius.

Things are looking up, let's see how they play out in the future.