Govt to buy 10 mn jabs of Zydus at ₹265 each
NEW DELHI: The Union government has placed an order for 10 million doses of Zydus Cadila‘s vaccine, ZyCov-D, at ₹265 each, said people familiar aware of the developments on Monday, paving the way for India’s first Covid-19 vaccine for children between the ages of 12 and 18 to be introduced into the national immunisation programme.
Additionally, ₹93 will be charged as the cost of the needle-free intradermal applicator that is required to administer the shot.
The price has been reduced from the earlier quoted figure of ₹1,900 for the three-dose vaccine that is indigenously-developed and is also the world’s first plasmid DNA-based Covid-19 vaccine.
“The Centre has placed an order for about 10 million doses. After hard bargaining by the government, the company agreed to bring down the cost. It is just a matter of time before this particular vaccine is used under the public immunisation programme,” said a person aware of the matter on condition of anonymity.
It took months for both the parties to fix a price for each dose.
The company confirmed the development. “…received an order to supply one crore doses of ZyCoV-D, the world’s first Plasmid DNA Vaccine, to the Government of India at ₹265 per dose and the needle-free applicator being offered at ₹93 per dose, excluding GST. The pricing has been decided in consultation with the Government of India,” said the company in a statement on Monday.
Sharvil Patel, managing director of the company, said, “We are happy to support the government’s vaccination programme with ZyCoV-D. The needle- free application of the vaccination, we hope, will motivate many more to vaccinate and safeguard themselves from Covid-19, especially children and young adults in the age group of 12 to 18 years.”
The government has been procuring Covishield and Covaxin, the two vaccines being given under the programme currently, for ₹215 and ₹225 per dose, respectively.
The Union health secretary in one of the press briefings on Covid said that differential pricing in case of ZyCoV-D was expected as it was a three-dose vaccine.
On August 20 this year, India’s drugs regulator approved the vaccine for anyone aged 12 and above, clearing the first shot for use in children and adding a sixth vaccine in India’s inoculation drive to fight the pandemic.
The vaccine works by instructing cells to produce the spike protein of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which elicits an immune response.
The approval was given by Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO) after its experts assessed results from the company’s phase 3 clinical trials that showed the vaccine to have an efficacy of 66.6%.
“Since this vaccine is administered differently using a needle-free applicator, vaccinators are being trained to give the shot,” said an official in the government aware of the matter, requesting anonymity.
The vaccine is to be given on day zero, 28 and 56, as per the schedule shared by the company.
“ZyCoV-D has shown good stability at temperatures of around 25 degrees for at least three months. The thermostability of the vaccine will help in easy transportation and storage of the vaccine without any problems of fluctuations in temperature. For prolonged use, a temperature of 2-8 degrees is sufficient. Also being a DNA plasmid vaccine, ZyCoV-D doesn’t have any problem associated with vector based immunity. The DNA Plasmid platform allows generating new construct quickly to deal with mutations in the virus,” said the company.
ZyCoV-D was developed in partnership with the government’s Department of Biotechnology under the Mission Covid Suraksha, which involved the pooling of resources by several Indian research institutions for development and clinical trials.
Mission Covid Suraksha was launched under the Atma Nirbhar Bharat package 3.0 being implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, and is aimed at the development of safe and efficacious Covid-19 vaccines for public health.
There are two vaccine candidates that have been tested among children in India; apart from the Zydus vaccine, subject expert committee of CDSCO also recommended use of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for use in children between 2 and 18 years recently.
The National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation is working on the protocol and framework for the inclusion of this vaccine in the programme as the vaccination in children is likely going to be introduced in phases with those at high risk (children with comorbidities) being given priority.
Government experts are at present working on a list of comorbidities that is likely to include those on cancer treatment, transplant cases, and those with compromised immunity, among others.
“They will have to do it in a phased manner as if you look at the numbers, there should be about 400 million children, and 1-2% of them likely to be at higher risk because of their medical condition and the kind of treatment they would be taking such as chemo, transplant medication, etc. It will be a huge challenge logistically; therefore, doing it in phases makes sense,” said Dr Anupam Sibal, senior paediatrician and group medical director, Apollo Hospitals.
Globally, at least 50 countries have begun giving doses to children. In most cases, children above the age of 12 are being inoculated in the fight against Covid-19.