The government owned High Security Animal Disease Laboratory, Bhopal is saddled with one lakh doses of bird flu vaccine for last several months with no prospects of its use in near future. The vaccine stock, held by HSADL since July 2006, is in danger of losing its shelf life any time.
Talking to Pharmabiz, HSADL joint director DR HK Pradhan said, " We developed the vaccine on the hope that we could find a remedy to treat the disease and containing the virus. We have the technology and can have an effective cure for the problem. We also have the results of clinical trials."
When asked what is happening to the vaccine, Dr Pradhan says "It's the government that asked us to prepare the vaccine and it has to take a decision about what it has to do with the vaccine". Dr Pradhan said, that the vaccine has a shelf life of one year and after that period, it has to be discarded.
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) had entrusted HSADL the job of developing a vaccine soon after the first outbreak of the H5N1 virus in February 2006. ICAR provided Rs.80 million for the project. HSADL officials said that this was for the first time India developed its own vaccine against the bird-flu. India used to import this vaccine earlier from other countries.
It was Dr Pradhan who led a special team of scientists that swung into action and developed the vaccine in less than six months after the outbreak. The cost of the vaccine had been worked out at 35 paise with the immune response of 90 per cent for a period of six months. HSADL is the only laboratory in India which is equipped for conducting tests for the H5N1 variant of bird flu, isolated 48 virus strains from more than 80,000 bird samples during its vaccine trials.