Coronavirus | Plea in Supreme Court for revival of vaccine PSUs to ramp up COVID-19 inoculation

A petition was filed in the Supreme Court to revive the vaccine public sector models contemplating the dire want to ramp up the COVID-19 immunisation and utilise their full manufacturing capabilities by placement of buy orders.

The petition filed by Amulya Ratna Nanda, IAS (retired), All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), Low Cost Standard Therapeutics (LOCOST) and Medico Friend Circle, represented by advocate Satya Mitra, urged the Supreme Court to push the ‘reluctant’ Union to put these PSUs to use in the time of dire want, particularly after public funds had been as soon as spent to make them Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) compliant.

The petition stated these PSUs, as soon as revived, needs to be granted “full autonomy” as envisaged in the Javid Chowdhary report of 2010 to guarantee their full revival and easy functioning in the long run.

The plea stated steps needs to be instantly taken “to revive vaccine PSUs by ensuring issuance of production licences to the remaining GMP compliant vaccine PSUs to utilise them for manufacturing all mass vaccination programmes including COVID-19 vaccine to meet on-going demand influx”.

“No PSUs should be excluded from producing any vaccine or from government vaccine procurement, as long as quality and affordability are ensured,” the petition submitted.

The petition referred to an order of the Supreme Court in October 2016 based mostly on an earlier petition. In that listening to, the federal government had agreed to take motion to revive the PSUs.

“Unfortunately, that has not happened and these vaccine manufacturing facilities that were catering to 80-85% of the demand prior to their suspension continued to languish wastefully despite their modernisation and capacity expansion. This is acutely felt in the present times,” the petition stated.

“India is home to the oldest vaccine PSUs, with 25 of them set up under the British Raj. By 1980s, 29 PSUs were set up with the sole objective of self-reliance and self-sufficiency in vaccine production for the Universal Immunisation Programme introduced in 1986 to prevent mortality and morbidity amongst children in India as part of the global effort by the World Health Organisation,” the petition knowledgeable.

According to the petition, following the liberalisation and privatisation insurance policies, 17 PSUs had been shut down by 2005. By 2007, solely seven PSUs remained operational, it stated. Two of these are State stage PSUs and 5 Central stage PSUs. Kings Institute of Preventive Medicine (KIPM, Chennai), a State stage PSU, has not produced any vaccines in the previous twenty years. The solely practical State stage PSUs at this time is the Haffkine Institute and its industrial arm, Haffkine Biopharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., (HBPCL) in Mumbai.

The Central stage PSUs are the Bharat Biologicals and Immunologicals Ltd, the Indian Institute of Immunologicals, the Central Research Institute (CRI) in Kasauli, the Pasteur Institute of India (PII) in Coonoor and the BCG Vaccine Laboratory (BCGVL) in Chennai, it stated.