12 August,2010 07:32 AM IST | | Alifiya Khan
Intra-nasal swine flu vaccine out of stock at many chemists in city
With the beginning of 'third peak' in swine flu epidemic and the consequent rise in number of H1N1 deaths, demand for preventable vaccines has risen like never before.
Sales of the intra-nasal vaccine by Serum Institute of India (SII) have been so high in the past 10 days that the vaccine is out of stock at most chemists.
According to Mahendra Pitaliya, chief co-ordinator of the Chemists Association of Pune District, chemists are running out of vaccine stocks.
"The shortage has been there for almost a week now. In the past 10 days there has been an exceptional surge in demand for the vaccine. As against 300 doses per day, more than 5,000 doses were sold out. The rising number of deaths may have scared people and they also realised the vaccine has no major side-effects. That is why they were sold out so fast," he said.
Pitaliya said that besides demand within the city, chemists and hospitals from Satara, Ahmednagar and Kolhapur areas were calling up for stocks of the vaccine.
Apart from Nasovac by SII, the other intra-muscular H1N1 preventive vaccine by Cadila, Vaxiflu-S is also showing an improvement in sales and was in short supply for a couple of days.
"But about 100 vials or 1,000 doses arrived on Monday and now there is no shortage," said Pitaliya.
Dr Rajesh Dhere, director at SII, said that stocks would reach the market by August 17 or 18.
"Actually there is no shortage of doses and we have over 1.5 million doses ready for sale in the market. But the required number of syringes and nasal spray pumps is unavailable.
We don't want any chances so are giving out these things along with the vaccine but we didn't anticipate the sudden surge in demand in stock," he said.
Dhere added that additional stocks of these items had already been called for and it would take five to seven days before regular supply was restored in the market.
