Political Storm Over Free COVID-19 Vaccine

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What has happened?

In its manifesto released in Patna Thursday,
BJP said every resident of Bihar will get a vaccine, approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), free of cost.
The manifesto was released by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at a press conference in Patna.
On the heels of the BJP, one of its supporters, the AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu, offered to administer the vaccine to all, again free of cost.
The State will go to elections in May.
The State has a population of 7.25 crore.

The announcement was made not by the party’s Bihar leadership but Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
The Congress said a vaccine should be “administered as matter of right and not matter of conditional political privilege”.
“What about non-BJP ruled states? Indians who didn’t vote BJP will not get free Covid vaccine?“ asked the Aam Aadmi Party.
National Conference’s Omar Abdullah said:”Will BJP be paying for these vaccines from the party treasury?
If it’s coming from the government treasury then how can Bihar get free vaccines while the rest of the country has to pay?”

Junior health minister Ashwini Chaubey said, “Every state will be given free coronavirus vaccine”.

The Covid-19 vaccine, still nowhere on the horizon.
Earlier, as part of the Covid-19 vaccine preparedness discussions, the Health Ministry had promised the States that,
It would procure vaccines for all and distribute them, and did not want them getting into a race for the antidote.

The distribution protocol for the vaccine, has not been finalised yet.
Centre said earlier this month that it was working on a plan to “receive and utilise” 40 to 50 crore doses of the vaccine by July next
States have been asked to prepare a list of priority groups to be vaccinated first.

It is still not clear how much the vaccine will cost.
Pune-based Serum Institute, which is manufacturing and testing the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine in India, is the only one to indicate the price;
It has said that each dose is not expected to cost more than $3.

At a recent WTO meeting, India, along with South Africa, lobbied for the waiver of Certain Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights obligations on medicines and vaccines to contain the raging pandemic.
While a large number of developing countries supported this,
The US and other developed economies do not seem to be in favour.
The move to provide free vaccines may give the latter a point in their favour.

While promises made in the manifesto do not qualify as ‘corrupt practice’ (as per Section 123 of Representation of the People Act),
They do tend to defeat the purpose of the model code of conduct if the manifesto is released during the MCC period.

Q)Which of the following statements regarding Global Vaccine Summit is correct?

It aimed at raising fund for immunizing children in the world’s poorest countries by 2025.
India also participated and pledged for $15 million.
The Summit was recently hosted by the USA.