HYDERABAD: The Health Department has recalled all batches of bivalent oral polio vaccine (bOPV) vials manufactured by Bio-Med after the Union Ministry of Health sounded alarm bells as a batch dispatched to Maharashtra was found to be contaminated with Type-2 poliovirus. Public Health and Family Welfare director Dr G Srinivasa Rao directed all district immunisation officers (DIO) and district medical and health officers (DMHO) to call back all batches of vaccines of the pharmaceutical company and urged parents to ensure that their children are not administered Bio-Med’s vaccine at private hospitals.
State officials who were on their toes after receiving the alert segregated the vials and submitted them to State vaccine stores. A meeting will be held in Delhi on Wednesday to decide the future course of action. The officials have appealed to the people to maintain calm and not be worried as they had not received any official communication on the virus being spotted in the batches dispatched to Telangana.
“Our polio immunisation is 95 per cent. There is no need to worry. Children below five years of age who have not been vaccinated can be brought to government facilities. We will make sure that they are immunised,” Rao said.
There are three different types of wild polioviruses (Type 1,2, and 3). The last reported polio P-2 virus case in India was in October 24, 1999, in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, according to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Inactivated polio vaccine is prepared by killing wild-type virus strains and oral polio vaccines by attenuating live virus strains. IPV fights P-2, P-2 and P-3 strains of the virus. Telangana switched from trivalent OPV to bivalent OPV (bOPV) — which builds anti-bodies against P-1 and P-3 virus — in 2016.
On September 10, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare deputy commissioner (immunization) Dr Pradeep Haldar directed to State officials that the use the BIOMED vaccine in question be stopped with immediate effect.
The reason for the decision, however, was communicated by the Centre only two weeks later, on September 24.
The vials taken off shelves were taken to cold storage units in red bags labelled ‘not for use’ and later submitted to State vaccine stores. All vials will be tested in phases to check for any possible contamination.
Sources said water samples from drains were being collected and sent for tests as the virus can be found in human excreta.
“Collecting samples from sewage and sending them for tests is a regular process. It has only been stepped up now. Besides this, as part of active surveillance, whenever doctors come across children below 15 years with weakness in their knees or paralysis, their stool samples are collected and sent for tests,” an official from the Health Department said. Bio-Med Pvt ltd did not respond to queries sent on Tuesday.