KARACHI, Aug 9: The National Institute of Health (NIH) — the sole public-sector manufacturer of bacterial and viral vaccines — remained in the doldrums for a full nine years because of wrong governmental policies.
As a consequence, the production of vaccines was affected adversely. This was stated by some experts on Saturday during the proceedings of a three-day seminar being organized at the Aga Khan University (AKU).
The experts claimed that in the 90s the NIH was led by bureaucrats who knew next to nothing about vaccine production or even about health care. Since 2001 the NIH, after stopping the production of vaccines, has been upgrading its equipment and also the processes in line with the guidelines provided by the WHO.
The ministry of science and technology research gave the NIH a grant of Rs40 million in this connection. After the changes had been carried out the NIH was rated as a “potentially viable” organization by the WHO, said the executive director of the NIH, Dr Athar Seed Dil. This indicated that the decline had been arrested but that there was still a lot of room for improvement.
Dr Dil told a gathering of local and foreign scientists that the three vaccines being produced at the NIH were meant to combat polio, tetanus and measles and were used during the routine EPI.
The executive director of the NIH said after the uplift work 35 million doses of oral polio vaccines, six million doses of tetanus toxoid vaccines and six million doses of measles vaccines had been produced.
“The doses of oral polio vaccine have already been tested by the quality control staff while those of tetanus toxoid and measles are being tested in the laboratories,” he said.
Dr Dil said that a PC-1 had been readied under which the production of all the EPI vaccines could be undertaken at the NIH. “The copies of the PC-1 had been sent to the ministry and also to the Islamic Development Bank.
“Negotiations are also continuing with some friendly countries including China, Malaysia, Iran and Egypt,” he said and added that the feasibility of the project was being looked into and a decision would be made in that regard by March.
An issue of importance which cropped up again and again during the proceedings involved the continued use of sheep brain vaccines which were meant to fight off the dangers of rabies and which had been declared obsolete by the WHO. The international health officials recommend the use of cell vaccines instead.
A number of participants asked Dr Dil why the production of the old type of vaccine had not been stopped yet. His response was that, firstly, the cost of cell vaccines which had to be imported cost twice or thrice as much as that of sheep brain vaccines and, secondly, there was not much difference in the performance of the two types of vaccines.
However, some participants including an office-bearer of the Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan did not agree with Dr Dil’s contention. They were of the view that some lives could be saved if the use of sheep brain vaccines in the government-run hospitals was stopped.
Earlier in the day, Dr Tasleem Akhtar of the Pakistan Medical Research Council said that between 1990 and 1998 the contribution of funds by international donors had declined by 67 per cent. She was of the opinion that the national immunization days had affected the routine immunization programme adversely.
Availability of low-cost vaccines and decline in donor funding were the main reasons behind the lack of interest in the country vis-a-vis vaccine manufacture, she said.
Dr Akhtar was of the view that the resources available in the country should be pooled together to revive the vaccines production programme and private and public-sector organizations and bodies should coordinate their efforts in that regard.
Dr Anita Zaidi of the AKU said more than half a million Pakistani children of five years or less died mostly of preventable diseases. That is 103 children, in a total of 1,000 live births, died before the age of five. She said 85 per cent of the births occurred at home and many died without ever coming to the notice of health-care workers and in many cases infectious diseases caused serious long-term disabilities.
Dr Zaidi claimed that 20 per cent of the deaths were preventable provided the EPI programme was run properly. That was equivalent to 120,000 child deaths which might be prevented.
