After the recent reports about contamination of bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV) vials manufactured by a pharma company Biomed, Telangana government health officials have assured the parents not to panic as children in the State were administered vaccine to protect from all three types of polio viruses — type 1, type 2 and type 3.
After certification of global eradication of type 2 wild polio virus, a decision was taken by India to switch to inactivated polio virus vaccine (IPV) injection along with bivalent oral polio vaccine in all polio campaigns and routine immunisation from April 2016. Prior to that trivalent oral polio vaccine was used with three types of polio virus vaccines and protected against all three types of wild polio viruses — type 1, 2 and 3.
The Centre advised the States to administer polio vaccine to children at sixth week and 14th week with bOPV and IPV but if any child missed the vaccine from 2016 onwards, they still could be administered the vaccine up to two years of age. “We are now identifying the children who have missed their polio vaccine and administering them with bOPV and IPV. Parents can walk into any public health centre and get their children vaccinated,” Director, Public Health and Family Welfare, G.Srinivasa Rao said.
Faulty sample
The bOPV has only type 1 and 3 polio viruses but the type 2 polio virus vaccine was found in the stool samples of children who were administered with vaccine supplied by the Biomed company during a surveillance programme.
bOPV protects against P1 and P3 viruses and the the IPV injection protects against P2 virus and the both bOPV and IPV are administered to all infants under routine immunization as mandated by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said Dr. Srinivasa Rao. That was how children in the State were protected from all three types of polio viruses, he added.
Vaccines recalled
Speaking to The Hindu, he said after the Union Ministry issued an alert in September last week about a batch of contaminated bOPV vials manufactured by the Biomed pharma company, Telangana authorities directed public health workers in all the districts to stop administering the bOPV vials of that pharma company. Measures were also taken to recall all batches of bOPV manufactured by the said company from every where — from cold chain points, vaccines stores in the districts and hospitals.