Hyderabad, April 25 (IANS) Authorities Friday seized vials of anti-measles vaccine from Human Biologicals Institute (HBI) here, after the vaccine claimed lives of four children in Tamil Naidu. State drug control administration director general R. P. Meena collected samples from HBI, a subsidiary of Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL), which in turn is a owned by public sector National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). The drugs manufactured by IIL are said to be responsible for deaths of the four infants in Tamil Nadu Wednesday.

Officials of drug control administration conducted searches at the HBI facility at Gacchibowli and seized 11,000 vials.

Though the central government has stopped the use of anti-measles vaccines manufactured by the company and ordered a probe, the HBI officials maintained that the vaccines supplied to Tamil Nadu were certified by the Central Research Institute (CRI) of Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh.

They, however, have not ruled out contamination due to the procuring authorities not taking the precautionary measures as prescribed.

The contamination could have taken place during the handling or storage as the vaccines have to be kept at temperatures ranging between two and eight degree centigrade till they are administered.

“If the cold-chain breaks the chances of contamination increases,” said IIL’s human vaccine division general manager Dinar Kumar.

The centre has already sent the samples of the vaccine to CRI, Kasauli, and the HBI officials here were awaiting the results.

Dinar Kumar told reporters that nobody from Tamil Nadu government has contacted them.

He claimed that their facilities met the WHO standards and the vaccines produced by it are sent to CRI for testing before being released to any governmental agency. Other states also received the vaccine produced by them through the central government.

IIL, which has been manufacturing veterinary vaccines since 1982, was granted permission by the central authorities in April last year to manufacture measles vaccine.

It was in late 1990s that the company had entered into human vaccination production by setting up human rabies vaccine centre at Ooty (in Tamil Nadu). It has been supplying anti-rabies vaccines to the Tamil Nadu government for last six years.