* S.Africa worst affected country in Africa
* Yet to receive first vaccine shots
* SII doses intended for healthcare workers
* COVAX, African Union doses to arrive later
(Adds context, activist quotes)
By Alexander Winning
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 21 (Reuters) - South Africa will pay $5.25
per dose for 1.5 million shots of AstraZeneca's
coronavirus vaccine from the Serum Institute of India (SII), a
senior official said on Thursday, more than some wealthier
countries are paying.
Health department Deputy Director-General Anban Pillay told
Reuters that SII's price was based on South Africa's status as
an upper-middle-income country under a World Bank
classification.
The price is higher than the $3 a dose that South Africa and
other countries on the continent are due to pay for the same
vaccine under an African Union (AU) arrangement, and the 2.5
euros ($3.03) per dose European Union countries have agreed to
pay.
South Africa is hosting clinical trials of the vaccine
developed by AstraZeneca in partnership with Oxford University,
raising questions about the higher price it will be paying. Its
public finances were already under huge strain before the
pandemic and have deteriorated sharply since it recorded its
first COVID-19 case in March 2020.
SII, a major manufacturer of the AstraZeneca vaccine,
declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
AstraZeneca said it could not confirm pricing details and
declined to comment further.
The London-listed pharmaceutical company has said it will
not profit from the vaccine during the pandemic, but a report in
the Financial Times in October said the firm can declare when it
considers the pandemic to have ended in its deals.
Fatima Hassan, head of the Health Justice Initiative, a
South African organisation focused on health rights and
inequality, said there needed to be more transparency about the
terms of AstraZeneca's agreement with SII.
"It's definitely unjust and unfair," she said, referring to
the price of $5.25 a dose. "South Africa can't regulate its own
prices because it is desperate to save lives and there is huge
pressure from the public to secure doses."
SORELY STRETCHED
The SII doses are intended for South Africa's frontline
healthcare workers, who have been stretched during a second wave
of infections driven by a more infectious virus variant called
501Y.V2.
They are due to start arriving before the end of the month,
before the AU doses, which become available from March, and
shots secured via the COVAX Facility, a global distribution
scheme co-led by the World Health Organization.
Pillay said developed countries that secured a lower price
per shot from SII had done so because they contributed towards
research and development costs of the AstraZeneca vaccine,
confirming a report in the Business Day newspaper.
He added that South Africa would try to negotiate a lower
price if it procured more doses from SII but that it had been
told $5.25 a dose was the standard global price for
upper-middle-income countries.
The health department announced the SII deal this month
after being criticised by local scientists and trade unions for
moving too slowly to acquire vaccines.
South Africa has recorded the most COVID-19 infections and
deaths on the continent, with more than 1.3 million cases and
over 38,000 deaths to date.
AstraZeneca's vaccine is one of the best suited to African
health systems as it does not require storage at ultra-low
temperatures like the vaccine from Pfizer and German
partner BioNTech.
($1 = 0.8241 euros)
(Additional reporting by Emma Rumney in Johannesburg and Ludwig
Burger in Frankfurt
Editing by Stephen Coates, Jane Merriman and Kirsten Donovan)
Astrazeneca (AZN)
