The Union health Ministry has reverted the senior microbiologist and Director of the Pasteur Institute of India (PII), Coonoor, Dr Elangeswaran from the post to senior specialist of Microbiology at the Central Government Health Services Institute, Chennai, it is learnt.

But Dr Elangeswaran, who is on medical leave since he was deprived of the additional charge of Director to BCG Lab, Chennai, has not taken charge so far. He was holding both the positions as director to PII and director to BCG Lab. In the end of April, this year the ministry had taken away the additional charge given to him.

Now, Dr Vonod Kumar, chief medical officer from the Central Health Institute is looking after the day to day affairs of the Institute. "Since the director post of BCG is a specialized one requiring technical and administrative capabilities, the government will opt for microbiologist like Dr Elangeswaran to head the Lab" the officer told Pharmabiz.

But sources from the Coonoor Institute said Dr Elkangeswaran was working as senior specialist in microbiology five years back and now the government has taken him away from the vaccine field.

Earlier Dr Elangeswaran had claimed that he was instrumental in bringing up the Institute at Coonoor from a sick unit into its present stage. But due to the alleged assault on him by a group of staff members in September last, he stopped visiting the Institute. Since then a friction was going on between the director and the staff and he confined to work in the Chennai Institute.

Both the institutes were manufacturing vaccines for the immunization programme of the country for the last six decades. But in January this year the Institutes were ordered to stop manufacturing of vaccines citing non-compliance of GMP norms set by the WHO. Along with this, the Central Research Institute at Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh was also served one stoppage order.

Now, there are reports that the country has started facing a vaccine shortage in some pockets and the situation may turn grave soon. The present requirement is met mostly from Serum Institute, Mumbai. According to experts, the immunization programme in India is one of the largest in the world in terms of quantities of vaccines utilized and number of beneficiaries.

The BCG Lab was manufacturing anti-tuberculosis Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine (BCG Vaccine) where as the Pasteur Institute of India (PII) in Coonoor was producing DTP vaccines, Vero-cell-derived rabies vaccine and Tissue culture anti-rabies vaccines.

The Central Research Institute (CRI) at Kasauli was the main contributor of the DPT group of vaccines to the Immunisation Programme.

According to recent information received, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) has decided to convert the three Vaccine and Sera-manufacturing units in the public sector into testing and training laboratories. For this purpose the ministry has constituted a Committee of Experts for laying guidelines for the conversion project.