A New-Delhi-based Indian English newspaper has raised questions about the real price of the Covid-19 vaccine. In the report titled ‘Vaccine Leak: Pharma Mafia set to swindle the world with Covid vaccine’, the Eastern Herald wrote: “Belgium’s minister, Eva De Bleeker published a tweet on Twitter exposing the price list of different COVID-19 vaccines available worldwide. It seems that she deliberately published the tweet and later deleted it under the influence of superiors.”
Belgium’s budget state secretary, Eva De Bleeker, took a bold step by revealing the prices of the coronavirus vaccines that the European Union (EU) has agreed to pay.
The prices had been kept secret by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive, which is negotiating on behalf of its 27 member states and ordering doses for the 410 million people living in the vast region, where cases have been surging.
For most drugs, European nations tend to pay substantially lower prices than patients in the United States. But the coronavirus vaccines are unusual because the US government negotiated prices and has arranged to buy doses for every American directly. For most medications, the US government has a limited role, and individual insurance companies bargain with drug makers.
The higher US price may reflect the eagerness of US officials to encourage several pharmaceutical companies to invest in vaccine development — and to move with haste. Those financial incentives appear to have worked: No vaccine has ever before been developed so quickly.
The price list, briefly released by Belgium’s budget state secretary, Eva De Bleeker, showed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is set for approval Monday in the bloc and is being administered in the United States and Britain, will cost 12 euros, or $14.70, per dose, bringing the cost per person to 24 euros, as each person is supposed to receive two doses.
That is markedly lower than the company’s official price, which has been announced at $19.50 per dose, the price the US government paid. The rollout of the Pfizer vaccine began in the United States this week.
The Moderna vaccine, which is the next in line for EU approval, on Jan. 6, and received authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use Friday, is costing the EU $18 per dose, the table showed. The company had said it was looking to charge $25 to $37 per dose. The US government has been directly involved in funding the development of the Moderna vaccine and has signed a contract to pay around $15 per dose.
Eric Mamer, a European Commission spokesperson, declined to comment on the price list, saying that the negotiated agreements were “covered by confidentiality,” but did not dispute the pricing.
A spokesperson for De Bleeker said that she had tweeted the details to settle a political debate in Belgium, where opposition politicians are accusing the government of not setting aside enough money to buy the vaccines.
In its investigative report, commenting on the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccines, Indian newspaper the Eastern Herald said: “The efficacy of any vaccine is a factor when it comes to reality. In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, the efficacy remains between 90% and 95% but the Indian serum vaccine efficacy is nearly 70% only. This is one of the significant reasons why India wants to buy Coronavirus vaccine from other countries.”
The Eastern Herald claimed, Indian Prime Minister Narendra got vaccinated during the first week of November alongside a large number of monarchs and heads of states in the world. Although Pfizer made an announcement about the marketing of the vaccine on the next day of the US presidential election, a large number of US politicians had got vaccinated by November 5th.
The selfish Joe Biden
While President-elect Joe Biden pretends to be a real leader of the American people, he has been exposed of his double standard by the Indian newspaper, which has claimed, quoting the Washington Post that Joe Biden received his vaccination in December 22.
Controversy centering coronavirus
While American and Indian politicians have been competing in putting allegations of China as the “spreader” of coronavirus, the Eastern Herald in its report said: Coronavirus is portrayed as a Chinese virus that originated in the city of Wuhan in China. But Chinese researchers claimed that this virus did not originate in China but other countries including India and Bangladesh. Another study revealed that the coronavirus appeared in the UK two weeks before that in China.
President-Elect Joe Biden said in a statement that the Coronavirus has been mutated and hence the world needs a different vaccine now. Recall that Joe Biden has already received his share of the Covid-19 vaccine. On the other hand, China claimed that the regular Covid vaccine is working fine against Coronavirus.
There are reports that the Coronavirus appeared in the UK 2 weeks before it appeared in China. But the mainstream media restrain from accusing Britain of COVID conspiracy. At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, in fact, before it, almost every media house was equipped with the self-drawn pieces of evidence that the virus appeared in Wuhan. Many media houses and some influential world governments started calling the Covid a Chinese virus.
The Eastern Herald further claimed, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, after his failed BREXIT negotiations have been on purpose spreading rumor centering coronavirus. It said, “Boris is trying very hard to take the advantage of Corona crisis to hide his failed BREXIT negotiation. Boris Johnson again imposed lockdown and sealed the borders of England to divert people’s attention from the issue of BREXIT to some other.”
