Seven months back, Bharat Biotech acquired Chiron Chiron Behring vaccines Pvt. Ltd. from GlaxoSmithKline. While launching anti-rabies vaccine Krishna Ella, CMD, Bharat Biotech International Ltd shared that they fulfilled their commitment and address the shortage of rabies vaccine in the country. Now, our country will get enough supply and no more shortage can be experienced. He also said that they are making additional investments to increase production capacities to over 15 million doses annually.
Krishna also added that he is proud to introduce the ChiroRab. Bharat Biotech, now becoming the largest rabies shot manufacturer in the world.
ChiroRab was marketed earlier under the trade name Rabipur, ChiroRab. It has been evaluated in over 25 controlled clinical trials in 5 countries in more than 7000 subjects.
Recently, health ministry shared their concerns of dwindling anti-rabies supplies and the relaunch of the vaccine is expected to curb the shortage of the vaccine. And the best thing is that with this introduction, people can get quality vaccines easily and vaccines are presently manufactured at the WHO pre-qualified facility in Ankleshwar in Gujarat. Before that launch, S Eswara Reddy former Drug controller shared his concerns with the words “The acute shortage of vaccine In India led the government to mull a proposal of even restricting the export of the vaccine.”
The shortage was faced in most of the states like Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur were facing shortage apart from Delhi. Reddy also said that there is a large demand for the anti-rabies vaccine. Indian companies also export rabies vaccine to countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Turkey, and some African nations, among others.
According to the WHO (World Health Organization), 36% of deaths due to Rabies is accounted for India in the world, which has set a target of eliminating rabies from South-East Asia by 2020.
Government hospitals in states will also get ChiroRab supplies through tenders, with the remaining available for the private market and exports.
Charles Ruprecht, former chief of the rabies program at CDC Atlanta said that this launch makes me hopeful for India and for the world.
