Healthcare insurance fund a lifeline in COVID times

China's healthcare insurance fund covered COVID-19 vaccine and vaccination expenses worth a total of 150 billion yuan ($21.6 billion) from 2021 to 2022 and paid 4.3 billion yuan for nucleic acid tests last year, the National Healthcare Insurance Administration said on Thursday.

Through negotiations with vaccine manufacturers, each dose of COVID-19 vaccines based on inactivated, recombinant protein or adenovirus vector technologies is priced at around 16 yuan.

The price of nucleic acid testing per person is capped under 16 yuan and the price of batch testing, which combines samples from up to 10 people in one single test, is no more than five yuan per person.

For mass testing, the price per person falls to less than 3.5 yuan, and the price of rapid antigen tests is reduced to under 6 yuan per person, it said.

These efforts have "effectively lowered burdens of the public and societal costs on epidemic control," the administration said in a report that summarizes its work last year.