CHENNAI: The State Health Department on Friday reiterated that it did not use oral poliovirus (OPV) vaccine supplied by the controversial Bio-Med Pharmaceutical Company based in Ghaziabad and in fact, it had sent back three lakh OPV vaccine stock.
Speaking to reporters at the Secretariat on Friday, health secretary J Radhakrishnan said, “We had three lakh OPV vaccine supplied by the Bio-Med Pharmaceutical Company through the Union Health Ministry, but we did not use it at all. We have sent back the stock after a freeze notice by the Union Health Ministry to the states,” he said.
Speaking to Express, Dr K Kolandaswamy, Director of Public Health, said, “We always store six months’ stock for routine immunisation. There was a fresh stock by Bio-Med. But we sent it back in the first week of September itself after a freeze order from the Union Health Ministry and the stock didn’t move from the main storage campus only.”
“Polio is caused by three types of virus, type 1, type 2 and type 3; so we were giving the trivalent vaccine. But in April 2016, a worldwide eradication certification was obtained for type-2 virus. So, we switched from trivalent vaccine to bivalent. Now, the detection of type-2 virus in stool samples will not cause any harm to the children. Also it won’t affect immunisation programme. So, public need not panic because of the detection of type-2 virus in the environment,” said Kolandaswamy.
Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry has said in its communication to press, “As part of efforts to maintain high immunity against all polioviruses, India provides inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) and bivalent OPV vaccine to all infants across the country under routine immunisation to maintain high immunity against polio. Two nationwide and one sub-national pulse polio campaign have already been conducted in 2018”.
Recently type-2 virus was found in stool sample in Uttar Pradesh, which received OPV vaccine supplied by Bio-Med, during a surveillance by Union Health Ministry and WHO.