UP recalls spurious polio vaccine vials manufactured by Ghaziabad firm

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government ordered the recall of an entire batch of bivalent oral polio vaccine (BoPV) vials manufactured by a Ghaziabad-based firm after a health ministry team found that the vaccine had been contaminated.

Confirming the order on Thursday, director general family welfare Dr neena gupta said: "the entire batch of vaccine -- B100318 -- has been recalled following instructions from the Union ministry of health and family welfare."

She added that the polio vaccine being administered under the routine immunisation campaign and pulse polio immunisation campaign was safe.

Explaining the matter, health officials said that polio is caused by three strains -- P1, P2 and P3. India reported the last P2 case in 1999 while the last wild polio case in India was detected on 13 January 2011. But India continued to administer polio vaccine (called trivalent oral polio vaccine) that targeted all the three strains.

In April 2016, after due recommendations from Global Polio Eradication Initiative, India decided to switch from the trivalent to bivalent vaccine (oral vaccine that targets P1 and P3 strains).

Though India was certified polio-free in March 2014, it continues to be vigilant against all three types of polio viruses by regularly collecting stool samples of children who show polio like symptoms including sudden onset of paralysis.

Each year over 80,000 samples are evaluated across 45 sites that work under the leadership of the World Health Organisation National Polio Surveillance Project.

"In the past few months, presence of P2 was noted in several stool samples which was unusual as neither the strain is prevalent in the country nor the vaccine being administered contains its vaccine," a health officer said.

Acting on the matter, health ministry and WHO got the vaccine samples collected from the manufacture based in Ghaziabad to check if there was any problem with the vaccine or not. The samples were sent to the Central Drug Laboratory Kasauli which confirmed the presence of P2 vaccine in the bivalent vaccine.

Following the report, an FIR was registered against the manufacturer while its owner was arrested in the last week of September. Besides, the use of all vaccine supplied by him was immediately stopped till further investigation. "Though the deviation is not going to harm the children, it is essential to be on the safe side. Thus, the entire batch has been recalled," said a senior health officer.