Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The country’s national exchequer has faced financial damage to the tune of Rs. 197.6 million owing to the expiry of large quantities of vaccines that provide inoculation against certain dog bites. The laboratory of National Institute of Health (NIH) deliberatively withheld the vaccine from any hospital or dispensary, looking to make more money.

According to details, the protection vaccine had been prepared at government expense and the corrupt mafia did not provide the vaccine to any hospital or dispensary. It was reported that many citizens afflicted by infections from dog bites had lost their lives owing to the lack of vaccines in hospitals and dispensaries. It was revealed in the report presented in the Senate that national health institute NIA’s biology production division year 2012-13 audit discloses that concerned department laboratory had prepared as many as 75,316 doses of dog bite protection vaccine during 2008- 09, with the total cost of approximately being Rs14.94 million. The department had to bear the expenditure of Rs. 187 on per dose.

Despite this successful production, the concerned laboratory had been closed without any reason assigned, which prepared the dog protection bite vaccine from the fiscal year 2009-10 to 2011-13. Due to this, Rs 117.3 million in the year 2009-10, Rs 16.4 million 2010-11 and Rs 16.4 million in the year 2011-12 and Rs 59.980 million in the year 2012-13 had allocated for the purchase of dog bite protection vaccine. The allocated funds could not be utilised owing to approval delay from cabinet division and concerned ministry.

As per the report, the administration of biological production division of National Institute of Health (NIH) could not achieve its production target due to non purchase of dog bite vaccine and the national exchequer had to bear the loss of Rs 174.5 million. It has been demanded in the report to identify those responsible for showing negligence in this regard and initiate an inquiry against them.

Moreover, the biological department had ordered various companies to prepare vaccines for snake and wasp bites and paid amounts in advance but most of the companies have failed to supply these. Because of this, the national exchequer has to face a financial cost of Rs 2 million. Similarly, the administration of NIH hadn’t collected income tax at the rate of 3.5 % on the supply of machinery of various types and the national exchequer had to bear the loss of approximately Rs 1.350 million. The report recommends holding those responsible to account.