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NEW DELHI: Oral polio vaccine vials contaminated with polio virus type 2 have been administered to children in Maharashtra and Telengana, except for Uttar Pradesh, Health Ministry officials confirmed.
The flasks were manufactured by a pharmaceutical company based in Ghaziabad.
The ministry has issued advice to the three states to have the polio surveillance teams identify the children to whom the contaminated vaccines were administered.
Surveillance teams were also urged to strengthen surveillance of children and to closely monitor the onset of symptoms.
You have to see how the virus behaves, said an official from the Ministry of Health.
The government had set up a committee to investigate the contamination of certain batches of vaccine.
Type 2 poliovirus has been eradicated worldwide.
"There is a well-defined surveillance mechanism in the country to identify any symptoms of polio in the affected areas and the government is able to deal with any eventuality.
"There is no need to panic.
The polio surveillance team in the three states was urged to strengthen surveillance of all children who received the vaccine and to closely monitor any symptoms, "said the official.
The Ministry of Health, as part of its national immunization program, will also ensure that inactivated poliomyelitis virus (IPV) injections are administered to each child in the relevant localities of the three states, so that they can be used. no child is forgotten, said the manager.
VPI is produced from wild-type poliovirus strains of each serotype that have been inactivated (killed) with formalin.
Until now, a single batch containing 50,000 vials had been found to be contaminated with strains of type 2 polio virus to date, said a senior official of the Ministry of Health.
Two other batches of flasks containing 1 lakh flasks are believed to be contaminated with the virus, said the official.
The incident was uncovered after surveillance reports from Uttar Pradesh showed signs of virus in some children's stool samples.
The ministry also ordered the immediate withdrawal of the vaccine from the manufacturer.
The chief executive of Biomed Pvt Ltd, which provided polio vaccines for government-run immunization programs alone, was arrested on Thursday after the Central Drug Regulator filed a RIP in the case.
India's Comptroller General of Medicines has also asked the company to halt "the manufacture, sale or distribution until new orders".
"The company has five directors.
While the director general was arrested, we asked the police to find the other administrators because they must also be questioned, "said a government official.
Immediately, oral polio vaccines were sent for testing, which confirmed that some of them were infected with the virus.
In 2016, the central drug regulator ordered all manufacturers to destroy traces of type 2 polio virus.
India was officially declared "polio-free" by the government in March 2014.
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