A premier vaccine research institute in Himachal Pradesh has stopped manufacturing the critical Japanese Encephalitis (JE) vaccine as it has failed to upgrade its laboratory to world standards.
The Central Research Institute (CRI) at Kasauli, about 80 km from here, supplies the JE vaccine to at least nine states. But the CRI has failed to upgrade its laboratory according to World Health Organisation (WHO) norms.Official sources said since the production of the JE vaccine is more expensive than importing Chinese vaccines, the union health ministry isn't keen to produce the vaccine at the CRI.
Last year, the health ministry imported a record 13.5 million doses of JE vaccines worth over Rs.128 million from China.
JE is a mosquito borne virus, which affects the human central nervous system.
Source-IANS
SRM/P
