By Express News Service
LUCKNOW: THE Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday ordered the recall of an entire batch of bivalent oral polio vaccine (BoPV) vials manufactured by a Ghaziabad-based firm after it found contamination in the vials last month.
An FIR was registered against the company, Biomed, while its owner was arrested in the last week of September. Besides, use of all vaccine supplied by the company was immediately stopped.Director General, family welfare, Dr Neena Gupta then sounded a state-wide alert after contamination was confirmed in the entire batch, which is supplied under the routine immunisation programme. According to sources in the health department, the vials were contaminated by the globally-eradicated P2 —type-2 polio virus strain.
According to sources, the vaccine supplied is estimated to be enough to cater to about 10 crore children across 10 states. So far the cases have been found only in UP.Though India was certified polio-free in March 2014, it continues to be vigilant against all three types of polioviruses by regularly collecting stool samples of children who show polio-like symptoms. Each year over 80,000 samples are evaluated across 45 sites under the WHO National Polio Surveillance Project.
