US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on Monday announced that it will supply COVID-19 vaccine only to central governments and supra-national organisations for deployment in national immunisation programmes, according to new agency ANI.

This comes after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that American pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna have refused to sell their COVID-19 vaccines directly to the state government.  The Delhi CM also asked the Centre to import the vaccines and distribute them to the states that are struggling to administer vaccines to their citizens. 

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The US pharmaceutical giant said allocation of doses and implementation plan within a country is a decision for local governments based on relevant health authority guidance.

It said discussions with the Government of India are going on and they are hopeful to bring the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID19 vaccine for use in the country.

At present, India has given emergency approval to three COVID vaccines, including Covaxin, Covishield and Sputnik V.

Joint secretary of Health Ministry said they were coordinating with Pfizer and Moderna on central level in two ways-approval and procurement. “It depends on surplus how much they can provide to India. They’ll come back to GOI, will ensure and facilitate. On that basis we may able to supply to states,” he added.