ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: The government is considering building a new sera processing laboratory at a cost of Rs164.7 million to meet the increasing demand of vaccine production in the country by enhancing the production capacity of the National Institute of Health (NIH), an official source told Dawn here on Tuesday.

A plan prepared in this regard aims at enhancing the production of life-saving sera and anti-snake venom at the NIH in accordance with the current standards of GMP (good manufacturing practices) and GLP (good laboratory practices) as defined by the Federal Drug Rules and WHO, the source said.

With rapidly growing population and awareness among masses about health care, the NIH not only needed to upgraded and increase the production capacities of different sera, but was also required to establish the current GMP compliant production facilities and improve manufacturing techniques, the source said.

The new facilities would also help achieve self-reliance in sera production by improving quality of the product, capacity enhancement, manpower training, human resource development and building of new GMP compliant facilities, the source said.

With the addition of new facilities, the current production capacity of the anti-snake venom production at the biological production division of the NIH would be increased from 0.3 million ml (milli litre) to 1 million ml; of anti-rabies serum from 0.5 ml to 0.3 million ml; of anti-diphtheria serum from 0.05 million ml to 0.1 million ml; and of anti-tetanus serum to 0.3 million mls.

A new stable has been constructed recently at the NIH to accommodate 100 more horses to meet the increased requirement of plasma. It will also help reduce the mortality rate due to snake bites and other infectious diseases in the country through the use of sera, the source said.

Established in 1965, the NIH is the sole producer of vaccines and sera in public sector in the country. However, at present, it is facing shortage of essential facilities for the GMP and the GLP as the equipment and machinery have become obsolete, he said.

Majority of the operations are performed manually. Besides, the building where sera processing is undertaken lacks pressurized air handling system - a primary requirement of any biological production unit.

Similarly, GMP requirements make it mandatory to have sterilization equipment with class 100 environment and steam to be produced for injection grade water.

A state-of-the-art molecular virology sequencing laboratory was also set up last year to carry out genetic sequencing of viruses for molecular analysis of the polio virus, eradication of measles and other preventable childhood diseases.

It also aimed at saving precious resources and time, strengthening indigenous capacity, improving programme surveillance, and allowing the health managers to plan their immunization campaigns in a better way to completely weed out polio virus. Before establishment of the NIH, Pakistan had to depend on the Atlanta-based Centre for Disease Control for such tests.