The Tamil Nadu Health Development Association (TNHDA), a movement by doctors and health activists, will stage a demonstration in front of the Central Memorial Hall near Madras Medical College today, February 28, in protest against the reported move by the union government to convert the BCG Vaccine Laboratory in Chennai into a testing laboratory for BCG vaccine, and the indecisiveness of the government in taking a solid decision regarding the fate of the Lab.
Eminent doctors, health activists and para-medical staff, social workers of different NGOs and advocates will participate in the demonstration along with other progressive forces.
As a second phase of agitation, the association members will send telegrams to the President of India, Prime Minister, Health Minister and the Union Health Secretary requesting ‘Save Vaccine Institute from vested interests, Save Our Children’.
After the protest demonstration, which will be staged in the evening, TNHDA president and former director of the Institute of Child Health, Tamil Nadu, Dr C S Rex Sargunam will deliver a speech on the present situation of the vaccine unit in Chennai.
He said further agitations will be there to prevent the government from surrendering the entire vaccine sector to private companies. His association also plans to file a Public Interest Litigation with the High Court of Madras against the government’s decision on BCG VL. In the protest meeting that will be followed by the demonstration, people from all walks of life will speak on, besides trade union leaders.
Recent information received from the health ministry reveals that the union government is not interested to make BCG Lab operational for vaccine manufacture, rather they are interested in converting it into a testing lab. According to some vaccine experts in the health ministry, if the government goes on with its conversion plan, the beneficiaries will be the private companies.
Now government is actually dragging the BCG Lab issue indefinitely without taking a solid decision, whether it should remain as manufacturing unit or as testing lab only.
According to TNHDA, the closure of vaccine producing companies in the public sector benefited private companies like Serum Institute, Pune, and Green signal Biopharma, Chennai. The anti-tuberculosis Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine produced in the BCG Lab in Guindy was being supplied to the entire country for the immunization programme.