New Delhi: Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail has reported that vaccine makers sold COVID-19 jabs to South Africa at inflated prices. The country's COVID-19 contracts were disclosed to health activists after a legal battle.

The newspaper said these were apparently the first set of COVID-19 vaccine contracts to be released in any country, without any redactions. The contracts showed that South Africa was liable to pay $734-million for vaccine deals with four entities in 2021. Of this, $95 million were paid without any guarantee that the doses would be delivered on time.

"The contracts showed that Pfizer charged South Africa a price of $10 a dose for 30 million doses, and South Africa was required to pay $40- million in advance, of which only half was refundable. The price per dose was 32% higher than the $6.75 “cost price” that Pfizer reportedly charged to the African Union," the newspaper said. It had given a chance to the company to respond which did not come till Tuesday evening. The Wire has also written to Pfizer seeking comments.

India's Serum Institute of India (SII) has also been accused of selling Covishield to the African country at higher prices. South Africa was charged $35 per dose – double the cost the European Union paid. The Wire has reached out to SII as well.

According to the newspaper, Johnson and Johnson (J&J) charged $10 for each dose of its COVID-19 vaccine, which was 15% more than what was charged to the European Union. J&J also dispatched such doses to the world which were filled and finished (as opposed to manufacturing) in South Africa at a time when the country was badly struggling for its own share of doses.

Responding to the charges, J&J told the newspaper that ultimately it sold its doses at the rate of $7.50 per dose as against the price mentioned in the contract. It also allowed Aspen Pharmacare, a South African country, to sell its own version of the vaccine through tech transfer.

Even GAVI, a non-profit organisation, which was providing vaccines under the Covax programme of the WHO to the world, has been accused of misdeeds as far as South Africa is concerned. "The contract gave South Africa no guaranteed number of doses and no delivery date, and the country was liable to pay for all doses ordered, regardless of delivery," the newspaper said.

GAVI defended its decision saying it "had provided financial incentives to manufacturers to ensure their readiness to produce, and so the payments from countries such as South Africa could not contractually be waived."

The newspaper also said vaccine contracts had conditions for secrecy and legal indemnification. The companies were also exempted from giving full refunds if the deliveries were delayed.

The  international coalition of health groups, including the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University in Halifax, has quoted as saying that  the contracts showed a pattern of bullying, profiteering and unethical behaviour by the vaccine makers.

“In our scramble for desperately needed vaccines, South Africa was forced to hand over unimaginable sums of money for overpriced vaccine doses,” she said. “Put simply, pharmaceutical companies held us to ransom. And we must ask: Did they do it to other countries, too," the newspaper quoted Fatima Hassan, a human-rights lawyer, who heads the Health Justice Initiative, which led the court battle to obtain the contracts, as saying.

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