Hyderabad: Three medical stores — one of them located near the Gandhi Medical College — continue to supply the banned trivalent oral polio vaccine in the city, according to the district medical and health officer of Hyderabad, who carried out an extensive survey in the city.
Shifa Medical Hall at Kachiguda railway station, Anvesh Medical Store at Amberpet and Gandhi Medical Stores near the Gandhi Medical College were found to have stocks of trivalent oral polio vaccine.
Dr P Padmaja, incharge district medical and health officer, said, “We have taken action against six MBBS doctors and one Unanai doctor who have been using this vaccine despite their being banned. A notice has been served on them and they have been told to give an explanation within 15 days. But we can’t take action against the medical stores. We have asked the drug controller to take action against them.”
Drug controller Dr Amrutha Rao said they have not received any information on the issue. Senior drug control officer Nagendra R. said, “No medical store supplies banned vaccine to the doctors. These stocks must have been procured by them earlier Currently, chemists do not have these stocks.”
When told that the survey by district medical and health officers had revealed that these medical stores stocked the banned vaccines, Dr Rao said they would look into it.
The use of banned trivalent oral polio vaccine led to the presence of vaccine-derived polio viruses in the environment. It was found twice at Amberpet and once at Nagole the sewage treatment plant.
A senior paediatrician on condition of anonymity said, “The presence of the virus in the drainage means the presence of the virus in the environment whereby the risk of contraction exists. Trivalent OPV contains live and weakened versions of all three types of wild polio virus (1, 2 and 3) while in the bivalent vaccine there is only type 1 and 3. Presence of type 2 vaccine derived virus means that it is present in the environment and has to be eliminated.”
According to sources in the health department, this continued presence of the virus puts a bad mark on the health department which has not completely moved away all stocks of the old vaccine. Its presence and use indicates that local level surveillance is not effective.
