Vaccine Cost and Equitable Access

Participants strongly favoured free or substantially reduced-price vaccines, with several calling for universal free access. Making vaccines free or deeply subsidised for lower-income populations was viewed as essential to broad uptake. Cost was identified as a significant barrier to COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The introduction of paid vaccination at private facilities was widely perceived as creating an inequitable two-tier system. One participant proposed a tier-based pricing model calibrated to individual or family economic status.