US based BD Medical-Pharmaceutical Systems in association with Indian Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Immunization (IAPCOI) completed a Time and Motion Study for the first time in India to assess the impact on vaccination efficiency with prefilled syringe.

The study conducted in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi and Kolkata demonstrated the superiority of PFS over single and multi-dose vials in terms of time taken for vaccination, vaccinator productivity, vaccine wastage, waste generated and errors occurring during vaccination. Time and Motion Research studies, which has earlier been conducted in the US and China has helped determine a significant reduction in time, error and health hazards with the usage of prefilled syringes.

It was an in-vitro study meant to assess the effectiveness of the delivery device or PFS. It has helped generate India specific data in Indian healthcare settings to ensure the end user understand the importance and usage of PFS.

The study found that the usage or penetration of PFS in the US is 30 to 40 per cent and 80-90 per cent in Europe but low in emerging economies like China which has a penetration of 2 to 3 per cent with India having less than one per cent."

Informs Murli Sundrani, director, BD Medical- Pharmaceutical Systems, “The Time And Motion study has confirmed the advantages of single-dose, ready-to-use devices like PFS as they offer benefits such as lesser injection time, lesser errors and much better productivity to patients, clinicians and public health. Collaboration with IAP-COI has helped us to confirm that PFS are risk reducers, as they reduce the occurrence of handling errors and associated health hazard risks as compared to vials.”

The study was an observational, open label, randomized two-phase time and motion study involving comparison in terms of efficiency associated with the vaccine administration process (preparation, injection, and disposal) and rate of handling errors with safety implications.

Says Dr SG Kasi, former IAPCOI Member, Bangalore and the principal investigator of this study, “PFS had the least scores in terms of errors with significant Handling errors and Health Hazard Risk (HHRE) scores. The advantages of the PFS have been acknowledged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which now recommends it as the “preferred” system of vaccine administration.”

The objective of the study was to evaluate the potential improvement in vaccination with PFS compared to single and multi-dose vials in Indian private market. Vaccination in India still predominantly uses multi dose vials (MDVs), but PFS offer many advantages over MDVs in terms of efficiency and safety, especially considering the many chances for errors and contamination that the use of MDVs creates in vaccination.