An online survey has found that people want the government to mandate companies to declare the maximum retail prices of the COVID-19 vaccines. The respondents also wanted a cap on the pricing of vaccines in private hospitals. They did not want the hospitals to levy registration charges for vaccination.
The survey, in which over 35,000 persons participated from across 304 districts in the country, found that 23% of people, who took the COVID-19 vaccine in the private sector, had paid anywhere between ₹1,000 to ₹2,000 per dose. About 3% of respondents said they had paid over ₹2,000 per dose. The question on how much a person paid for the vaccine at a private healthcare facility received 8,385 responses.
While 20% respondents said they paid ₹1,500 to ₹2,000 per dose of Covaxin, 11% said they paid ₹500 to ₹1,000. Sixty percent respondents had paid ₹250 to ₹500 per dose. As much as 73% of the 9,021 persons, who responded to a question on whether State governments should cap per dose service charge at private hospitals, were in favour of it. While in hospitals it could be capped at ₹100 to ₹200, off-site locations such as community centres, societies, colonies, offices and clubs could have a cap of ₹200 to ₹400, they said.
A total of 9,063 respondents said hospitals should not levy registration charge for the vaccine. At present healthcare institutions charge anywhere from ₹100 to ₹500 as registration charge in addition to the vaccine and service charges. Most respondents (83% of 8,518 responses) were in favour of the government declaring a maximum retail price for the vaccine. A vial contains 10 doses of the vaccine.
LocalCircles, a community social media platform that conducted the survey, has proposed to escalate the findings to all State governments, the Union Health Ministry, the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority. The platform enables citizens and small businesses to escalate issues for policy and enforcement interventions, and enables the government to make citizen and business-centric policies.
