New Delhi: With the increase in Covid cases amid increasing demand for syringes during the current Covid-19 Vaccination in India, Hindustan Syringes and Medical Devices (HMD) said on Sunday that the company will invest more than Rs 100 million to increase its production capacity from 2.5 billion syringes to more than 3 billion.
Rajiv Nath, managing director of HMD, said that the company should not only invest in production lines of injection molds, casting machines, printing and assembly packaging, etc. Not only in needle assembly, needle sharpening, recruiting and training workers.
“Our current production capacity is more than 2.7 billion syringes per year of disposable syringes, and auto-deactivate syringes are about 90 lakh per day. And we are investing at more than Rs 100 million to increase the capacity from 2.5 billion syringes to more than 3 billion by the next quarter, ”Nath said.
The main syringe of the medical syringe recently received an order for the supply of 265 million syringes that are automatically eliminated. The company has allocated two-thirds of its production capacity for government assignments and the balance sheet for global UN customers.
HMD sends out 0.1 ml and 0.5 ml Kojak disposable syringes for global vaccination projects in the developing world, for yellow fever, measles, hepatitis B and others.
This is in addition to Covid-19 vaccination requirements of 0.3 ml for Pfizer vaccines or 0.5 ml Kojak automatically deactivate for the vaccines AstraZeneca / Serum Institute of India (SII) or Bharat Biotech.
According to Nath, HMD has been practicing the government’s ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ initiative for decades by making their components.
“We share the Prime Minister’s vision and pursuit of an Atma Nirbhar Bharat. It is in our DNA, ”said Nath.
‘It’s another matter that government policy over the past ten years has favored the import of medical devices and components. It is therefore no longer a competitive advantage to manufacture these components in India, ‘he added.
The company said that due to the pandemic, it also faces few challenges in the production and supply process.
“As a result of Covid-19 pandemic, the delivery of molds and machines from Indian and international suppliers is delayed by 1 to 3 months and with severe travel restrictions in many countries, we have to install the machines on our own as foreign technicians are not available, which further the commercial use slow down. too, ”Nath remarks.
The company received 240 million Kojak syringes for COVAX via UNICEF and 79 million for Dispovan syringes via PAHO for Brazil.
‘We also sent 140 million Kojak sprayers to Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) last December. We recently sold 15 million syringes to the Japanese government. In total, we serve more than 120 countries worldwide, ”he said.
Earlier, Nath told IANS that more than 440 million Kojak syringes would be available by September in India’s massive vaccination process, including 177 million by April this year, along with supplies of Dispovan syringes to private hospitals and vaccination clinics.
Source: Telangana Today