JOIN USBudget 2022 and Covid-19 vaccination
A year after spending heavily on the Covid-19 vaccination, the Centre on Tuesday gave a clear hint of the Covid-19 vaccines to be available in the open market as the funds for public procurement of vaccines have been slashed drastically.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has proposed to allocate just Rs 5,000 crore for Covid-19 vaccination as against Rs 35,000 crore in the last budget, which has gone up to Rs 39,000 crore in the revised estimate.
"We are in the midst of an Omicron wave, with high incidence, but milder symptoms. Further, the speed and coverage of our vaccination campaign has helped greatly. With the accelerated improvement of health infrastructure in the past two years, we are in a strong position to withstand challenges,” she said.
The proposed allocation made in the 2022-23 budget seems to suggest that the Centre would procure only a fraction of the doses this year, scaling down the free vaccination campaign while a sizable quantity of the vaccines may be available in the open market for private sales.
Experts, however, pointed out that in case of any emergency the government could always pump in more money in purchasing the doses.
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has recently granted regular licenses to Covishield and Covaxin, clearing the decks for the vaccine's entry into the commercial market.
Several other Covid-19 vaccines are in various stages of development and regulatory approval.
The Centre has so far spent more than Rs 28,000 crore on Covid-19 vaccine procurement leaving more than Rs 10,000 crore in the kitty for purchasing the vaccine in the current fiscal. Nearly 98% of adult Indians have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine while more than 76% are fully vaccinated.
“The budget signals the government's confidence that the threat posed by Covid-19 has been overcome and other priorities await the economy. Within the health sector, greater allocation should have been provided to the National Health Mission to strengthen primary healthcare,” commented K Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India reacting to the budget announcements.
The allocation for the NHM has been Rs 37,800 crore, which is almost at the same level as last year's budgetary estimate of Rs 37,130 crore that was slashed by nearly Rs 2,000 crore later. The NHM received better funding support in 2020-21 as more than Rs 37,000 crore was spent.
The Rs 86,000 crore plus health ministry budget for 2022-23 increased marginally when compared against the last fiscal's revised estimate of over Rs 85,000 crore but compared against last year's budgetary estimate of Rs 73,000 crore – its a 16% jump.
Sitharaman announced launching Ayushman Bharat digital mission that would consist of digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity, consent framework, and universal access to health facilities. An initial allocation of Rs 200 crore has been made for the ambitious project.
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