Shimla, May 27
There are two faces of Himachal Pradesh Pharma hub called BBN (Baddi-Barotiwala and
Nalagarh) of Solan district as it grabbed international headlines recently that for one of its firm manufacturing 10 Crore Russian Covid vaccines Sputnik and on the other side it is also known for dubious reason with prevalence of manufacturing substandard and fake drugs.
The Pharma hub was reported by the BBC, Mint and NDTV and a number of media houses for producing Sputnik vaccine which is third vaccine to be produced in the Country after Oxford Covid Shield vaccine and Covaxin earlier.
Currently BBN based Panacea Bio Tech is manufacturing first and second phase 30 lakh vaccines each as a test batch. The vaccine could be stored in normal cooling system would likely help to overcome the shortage of vaccine in the country. Besides the firm is collaborating with Reddy labs to produce 30 crore Sputinik-V which would be supplied to other nations under Russian Direct Investment Fund. The consignment of test dose of vaccine is likely to be shipped to Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Russia for quality control.
In the same period when the BBN Pharma hub is scripting a new history to produce life saving vaccines for saving millions of lives in the globe, a dubious firm was busy in multiplying and faking another UK based drugs Ramesdivir in the BBN area, news also published in many national papers with broad head headlines.
The racket was busted through a raid by the joint team of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh police after recovery of fake leveled Ramesdivir injections in large quantities at Ambala on April 21 as FIR was lodged after recovery of 24 vails of this drug from possession of four accused.
This exposed the illicit trade how people of are making money by faking or selling the vials injections
in the high time of Covid pandemic on exorbitant rates. Including the owner of manufacturing unit, Alfin Drugs Pvt Ltd, one Dilpreet Singh in Nalagarh 11 people
were arrested, with 673 seized vails the unit has been sealed by the drug control authorities.
During the course of the investigation, connection of these accused have been found with remdesivir injections that were thrown in the canal at Salempur village police station in Chamkor Sahib, Punjab.
The biggest pharma hub in Asia was also found as one of the state hotspot of Covid infection has also been remained in the thick controversy in past for adulteration of drugs, which have taken number of lives and playing with the health of people.
