DMK MP Wilson urges Centre to use 3 facilities in Tamil Nadu to manufacture COVID vaccines

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP Wilson wrote to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan urging the Centre to use the three vaccine manufacturing centres in Tamil Nadu as the state battled with the second wave of COVID-19. The DMK MP's letter to the Health Minister came after the CM Stalin-led state govt announced its decision to float a global tender to procure COVID vaccine doses as a gap existed between the state's demand and supply of the vaccine doses. In his letter to Dr Harsh Vardhan, DMK's Wilson highlighted that King’s Institute at Chennai, Integrated Vaccine Complex by HLL Biotech at Chengalpattu, and Pasteur Institute at Conoor could manufacture COVISHIELD and COVAXIN vaccines as they had the necessary machinery & infrastructure for large scale production. 

DMK MP urges Centre to use facilities in TN to manufacture COVID vaccines

The DMK MP noted that he had made a similar suggestion to the Additional Solicitor General representing the Centre at the Madras HC in the suo moto hearing on 26 April. Wilson highlighted that the HC had been informed by the Centre that the three plants lacked the 'technical know-how' to manufacture COVID vaccines and that no one had volunteered when a tender was floated on two previous occasions. Calling the Centre's stand as 'spurious', the DMK legislator suggested two ways to put these facilities to use to produce COVID-19 vaccines. 

Wilson claimed that Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech could be permitted to use the three facilities in Tamil Nadu on payment of charges to ramp up production as they already had the patent for the COVID-19 vaccine. Secondly, the DMK MP highlighted that the Centre had the power to issue compulsory licensing of a drug during a 'national emergency' under Section 92 of the Patents Act, 1970 and use the three centres to produce vaccines. Wilson claimed that the inoculation of the population was key to fighting COVID-19 and urged Centre to allow the three facilities to be used to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines. 

Tamil Nadu's COVID situation

Tamil Nadu recorded 31,892 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, including seven returnees from various destinations, pushing the caseload to 15,31,377 while 288 deaths in the last 24 hours took the toll to 17,056. According to a bulletin, 20,037 people were discharged today, taking the tally to 13,18,982, leaving 1,95,339 active infections. With the pandemic raging in the southern state, Tamil Nadu for the first time went past the grim 10,000-mark on April 18, 20,000 on May 2 and 30,000 on May 12.

The state capital accounted for 6,538 new infections, totalling 4,25,603 till date. The metropolis leads also in the number of fatalities at 5,621. The number of samples tested today were 1,60,042, pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined so far to 2,47,85,458. Besides Chennai, Chengalpet added 2,225 cases, Coimbatore 3,197, Kanyakumari 1,025, Madurai 1,250, Thiruvallur 1,410, Tiruchirappalli 1,224 while the remaining districts clocked new infections in triple digits.