A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the Centre as well as the State government to utilise the services of an Integrated Vaccines Complex (IVC) at Chengalpattu in the fight against COVID-19.
According to the litigant S. Aiyadurai, the IVC was established by HLL Biotech Ltd, a central public sector unit, on over 100 acres of land to produce cost-effective and life-saving vaccines required to support the Centre in universal immunisation programme.
Claiming that the IVC had the capacity to produce 20,000 litres of hand sanitisers every month at an affordable and competitive price, the litigant said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare could utilise the firm’s capacity to ensure uninterrupted supply.
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Similarly, the Centre as well as the State government could expedite the issuance of licences to the IVC for producing Viral Transport Medium (VTM) kits used for transporting the clinical samples of those suspected to be suffering from COVID-19 for viral detection testing.
If the licences were granted, IVC could produce 3,750 kits every month and each kit could be used to lift 50 samples, he said. Further, the IVC could be used as COVID-19 testing laboratory centre as the infrastructure required for it was already in place, he added.