Bereft of choice, Chinese vaccines head for Bihar

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With the water level receding, the flood-hit areas of Bihar are soon going to be a hot bed for diseases with high possibilities of an epidemic.

The Health ministry on Friday stated that they have sent vaccinations to Bihar for Japanese Encephalitis, imported from China.

India first imported 12 million doses of the anti-JE vaccine from China in 2006 following reports of deaths owing to Japanese encephalitis (JE) in Uttar Pradesh in 2005.

China, so far, has a monopoly in the production of the vaccine with some candidate vaccines undergoing trials.

However, though the Chinese vaccine was developed in 1990 and has successfully protected 200 million Chinese children against JE in the last 15 years, there have been some lingering concerns over its safety.

Scientists say the live attenuated virus in the Chinese vaccine could multiply in vector and recombine with local viruses resulting in creation of recombinant viruses with unknown characteristics.

Dr Dhalaria, senior programme officer for JE with international NGO PATH, said, "The Chinese vaccine has been reviewed by the WHO's Global Committee on Vaccine Safety. However, ICMR and NICD are carrying out immunogeneticity studies on the vaccine to see whether a second dose is needed or not."

Almost out of helplessness the Health secretary, Naresh Dayal, said, “We have sent the same Chinese vaccines used in Uttar Pradesh in 2005.”

“The Indian vaccine would take atleast another 1-2 years to come into the market.”

“We have no other option,” he added.