Pakistan will start the mass production of anti-rabies vaccines and snakevenom antidote by 2021 to end its dependence on imports from India for them.
The country requires between 200,000 and 300,000 doses of antidote forsnakebites and 1.5 million to 2 million doses of rabies vaccine every year.These doses have been imported from India but there has been a temporaryshortage in their supply due to the strained relations between thecountries.
The head of Vaccine Production at the National Institute of Health (NIH),Dr. Ghazala Parveen, said, “An entirely new manufacturing facility has beenset up and approved by DRAP for the mass production of anti-snake venom,anti-rabies sera, typhoid vaccine, and tetanus toxoid”.——————————
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“With the latest machinery and equipment at hand, we hope that the countrywill not import these products from India in the future,” she added.
Pakistan will resort to importing the vaccines from China until the localproduction meets the local demand.
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The Vice-Chancellor of Karachi’s Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS),Prof. Dr. Mohammed Saeed Quraishy, said, “Pakistan faces a 70 percentshortage of anti-rabies vaccine”.——————————
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“We have just started a project. What we are planning to do is to import itfrom China, repack it in the Dow Life Sciences Institute, and then marketit,” he said.
In Pakistan, around 1 million dog-bite incidents occur every year, of which200,000 cases were registered in Sindh alone by October this year.Therefore, it is essential for Pakistan to becomes self-reliant and produceits own rabies vaccine and snake bite antidote.
