KFD vaccine

The circular was odd for several reasons. The KFD vaccine is widely seen as the top-line defence against the disease. After all, there is no specific treatment for KFD, and it is hard for forest workers, who are most at risk, to avoid tick bites. Also, the vaccine had been used in the state for some 33 years. So, why did the health department suddenly decide to stop using the vaccine? What the circular didn’t reveal was that this decision, in fact, hadn’t been sudden. On the contrary,…

After it first developed the vaccine in the 1970s, NIV scientists transferred the technology to the Government Virus Diagnostic Laboratory (VDL), Shivamogga, in 1989. Subsequently, the NIV provided logistical support to VDL Shivamogga until 1998, according to ICMR documents. Next, when VDL Shivamogga transferred the vaccine technology to the Institute of Animal Health and Veterinary Biologicals (IAHVB) in Hebbal, Bengaluru, in 2000, the VDL retained the responsibility of conducting one…

The manufacturing process for the vaccine has not changed since the 1980s, when the vaccine was originally developed by the National Institute of Virology (NIV)’s CN Dandawate and his team. The starting point of this process is a strain of the KFD virus, which the NIV isolated from Shivamogga in 1957. This virus is called the master seed for the vaccine. The NIV was supposed to share this master seed with the Government Virus Diagnostic Laboratory (VDL), Shivamogga every few years. VDL…

To understand it fully, however, one needs to understand how India’s joint licensing system for human vaccines works. The green signalBoth the CDSCO and the state regulator play roles in India’s joint licensing system, although the CDSCO’s part is more critical. This is because many state regulators do not have the expertise or infrastructure to evaluate the quality of vaccines. For instance, KDCD’s labs lack the ability to independently test the quality of the KFD vaccine. This is why…