After the wastage of over 20 lakh doses of Japanese Encephalitis (JE) vaccine in Uttar Pradesh and other parts of the country in the last two years, its China-based manufacturer has agreed to upgrade the vial monitors that are put on the vaccines supplied to India.

In 2008, the state government had refused to use four lakh doses of JE vaccine.

This year, it refused to use around 16 lakh doses of the vaccine as its vial monitors showed second or third stage heat exposure.

While in 2008, both the state and the Centre had blamed each other over the issue, this year, the Union government had found that there was some problem with the vaccine vials supplied from China.

Following this, a delegation from the China-based manufacturer, China National Biotech Group, had visited India two days ago to take stock of the situation. The team had also visited the Karnal-based Government Medical Store where the vaccines were stored in 2008.

During inspection, the team found that the stability of the vaccine was much higher than that of the vial monitors. The vial monitor’s life was shorter and more sensitive than the actual life and sensitivity of the vaccine to the heat. Following this, the company has agreed to upgrade its vial monitors from the next supply of vaccine to be made around June-July 2010.

Speaking to The Indian Express from China, Lingjiang Yang, Manager for International Business and Co-operation of China Biotech Group, said: “It has been found that the category of vial monitors used so far were not in accordance to the stability of our vaccine. While we have been using vial monitor-7, the preliminary data of the study shows that category vial monitor-14 will be suitable for our vaccine.” Yang had led the delegation to India recently.

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