WEB DESK
Coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford will cost USD 3-4 per shot ( Rs 219-292) to the government and will be priced at double that rate in private market ones such sales open up, said the CEO of its Indian manufacturer on Monday.
Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has a licence to produce the shot and has already manufactured close to 50 million doses.
Indian drug regulator on Sunday approved Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for restricted emergency use in the country.
“We want the vaccine to be affordable and accessible to all. The government of India will receive it at a far more affordable price of USD 3-4, since they will be buying in a larger volume,” he said.
The difference in types of vaccines
The Oxford-AstraZenenca COVID vaccine, named Covishield in India, and known as AZD1222 globally, uses a replication-deficient chimpanzee viral vector, based on a weakened version of a common cold virus, also called the adenovirus. It contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein. After vaccination, the surface spike protein is produced in the human body without any impact of the actual COVID-19 disease, allowing the immune system to be prepared to attack the virus if it affects the body in the future.
Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, on the other hand, is an inactivated form of the novel coronavirus itself. The strain was isolated from an asymptomatic COVID-19 patient at the National Institute of Virology, Pune, by the Indian Council of Medical Research. They then handed over the strain to Bharat Biotech in order to produce India’s first home-grown COVID vaccine. The vaccine uses an inactivated form of the virus to produce an immune response, that will attack the actual virus if it enters the body in the future.