By IANS,
New Delhi : A year after H1N1 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO), India Thursday got its first indigenous vaccine for the deadly flu.
Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad launched the vaccine which he said was the first one developed in independent India.
“It is right on time as monsoon and winters are the peak time for the H1N1 to spread,” Azad said.
Indian vaccine for H1N1 comes much after US and China made their versions. India so far had to import the vaccine to meet the domestic demand.
“We had no experience in production of vaccines, but we managed to make it on time,” the minister said.
Chairman and managing director of Cadila Healthcare Pankaj Patel became the first person to take the vaccine followed by Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
The vaccine, developed by Gujarat-based medicine giant Cadila Healthcare will provide immunity from the H1N1 strain of virus which is a mutation of the swine flu virus.
The vaccine will provide immunity to H1N1 for one year. Priced around Rs.350, it will be available in markets from Friday.
“The vaccine has not been tested for very long time period, but it must provide immunity for one year,” Patel said.
“The virus changes its strain every year. So anyhow, another shot of vaccine will be needed after an year,” he added.
The vaccine is for age group 18-60 and is not meant for pregnant women and children.
“The strain affected mostly adults. So the vaccine is presently for adults only,” Azad said.
Patel said more research was needed before a vaccine could be introduced for pregnant women and children.
Azad, however, added that the previous stock provided to the state governments was not fully utilised and he would be writing to the state governments to ensure utilisation of the stock.
“We will write to the states to ensure the vaccine stock given to them is used,” Azad said replying to a question.
“We imported the vaccines to meet the immediate needs. However, all states have not utilised the stocks given to them,” Azad said.
The minister said that only eight states have so far used more that 50 percent of the H1N1 vaccine given to them.
Nearly 31,934 people have been affected by the H1N1 flu in India so far. The casualties from the flu has reached 1,531 by May 31.
Though the number of new infections have come down rapidly over the past couple of months, health ministry figures confirm nearly 30 new cases of the flu last week while four deaths have been reported.
The highest number of 21 cases was reported from Maharashtra last week.
Of the deaths, three were in Maharashtra while one was reported from Kerala.
Four companies, Cadila Healthcare, Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech and Panacea Biotech were granted research aid for developing indigenous vaccine to the virus which claimed more than 1,500 lives in last one year.
The vaccines by Serum Institute is likely to hit the market by the end of this month, while Bharat Biotech and Panacea are likely to launch their versions by July and August respectively.