India - a dumping ground for deadly blood ?
A major international racket in contaminated blood and blood products has been unearthed by Austrian authorities. An Austrian firm, M/s Albovina Biological Products, had been importing HIV-positive and Hepatitis B-positive blood from South Africa and routing it to various countries in Asia and Europe through commercial channels. Consignments had been supplied to pharmaceutical manufacturers in various countries through circuitous difficult-to-trace routes and had been labeled as research products to escape the stringent checks to which blood and blood products for therapeutic use are subjected.
The matter first came to light in December, 1996. Following investigations and seizures by Austrian police, Austrian Health Ministry officials notified the World Health Organization. Subsequently other firms, based in Austria and Switzerland, were identified which had deliberately dealt in the contaminated blood products. The Austrian authorities also individually tipped off the Governments of those countries, such as India, to which they could trace supply of the consignments. The racket had apparently been going on for 4 years. Consignments that had reached India had been labeled as processed in Austria, sent via a Swiss firm to USA, from which they had been shipped to India. At least 2 Indian firms has been at the receiving end of these deadly consignments - New Delhi based M/s Panacea Biotec Limited and Mumbai based Bharat Serum & Vaccines Pvt. Ltd. China has also been affected as also several countries in Eastern Europe. However, investigations by the office of the Drugs Controller General of India have not yet established that the consignments did reach India.
Time and again it has been experienced that international commerce has little scruples and nothing is sacred, not even human lives, when the motive is profit. The only safeguard is perpetual vigilance. Indian importers and the Indian Government would do well to build up effective safeguards rather than placing explicit trust in their commercial partners. As for India’s masses, long ago they have entrusted their lives to the only entity they have thought trustworthy - God!

Sources:

1. Indian firms imported tainted blood from Austria. The Statesman (Calcutta) 1998, Apr 27.
2. Chaya M. No evidence of import of contaminated blood. The Business & Political Observer (New Delhi) 1998, May 4.

The dysentery bacillus snubs traditional antibiotics in Africa
An outbreak of bacillary dysentery in Cameroon in Africa has affected at least 237 people and claimed 60 lives since November, 1997. Stool sample analysis by Cameroon Health Ministry officials in collaboration with the World Health Organization has led to identification of Shigella dysentery type I as the causative organism. What has alarmed experts is that, antibiotic sensitivity testing has shown the infecting strains to be resistant to traditionally used antibiotics, although they are sensitive to powerful new antibiotics belonging to the quinolone and cephalosporin groups.
Bacillary dysentery is a common problem in India like in the African continent. Shigella dysentery type 1 strains are often incriminated. This organism is the most virulent among Shigella species and the only one that causes epidemic dysentery. Co-trimoxazole has been the traditionally recommended drug for bacillary dysentery in India. It is not known to what extent the organism is still sensitive to this drug in different parts of the country, though clinicians still get positive results with co-trimoxazole. At the same time quinolones like norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin (and combinations of these drugs with metronidazole and tinidazole) are being indiscriminately used in acute diarrheas, even in children and even when there is no blood and mucus in stool. This is a dangerous practice as it may foster resistance to these newer antibiotics with grave implication for the patient who does have bacillary dysentery and does not respond to traditional antibiotics.

Source: WHO Weekly Epidemiological Record and Epidemiological Bulletin [online version] 1998, Apr 29.

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