CENTRAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

The Central Research Institute, Sohan district, Kasauli was established in 1905. Since 1953, the CRI has produced anti-sera products such as the anti-rabies serum, anti-diphtheria serum, anti-tetanus serum and anti-snake-bite serum. It also supplies diagnostic reagents to various organisations all over the country for research purposes.

The CRI started production of the Japanese encephalitis vaccine in 1982, and in 2001, after the epidemic in Andhra Pradesh, it stepped up production to meet any emergency. Scientists were trained in Japan and the CRI committed itself to continued production of the vaccine in order to build a stock to face fresh outbreaks.

The CRI is also the only organisation in South-East Asia to produce the yellow fever vaccine for people visiting South American and African countries. Very recently, the Health Ministry of the Government of Egypt came forward to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for the transfer of technology from the CRI to produce the yellow fever vaccine.

The CRI has been the main contributor of the DPT group of vaccines to the Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI), now called the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP), for the past 25 years. In 2006-2007, the CRI not only met the vaccine target but also wiped out the backlog.

The suspension of production is bound to have adverse effects on the public health system, which was dependent on the supply of cheap vaccines from the CRI and the other institutes in the public sector. The national immunisation programme of the government will also stand to be affected if the CRI’s licence to produce is terminated.

The suspension was all the more surprising as the CRI had been given the responsibility to supply 800 lakh doses of the DPT group of vaccines as no other public or private sector manufacturing organisation was in a position to supply the vaccines for the current year.