ISLAMABAD – The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was reprimanded and told off by the National Assembly Standing Committee on Health on Tuesday, who called for cancellation of probe into the locally produced interferon injections and condemned the Ministry of Science and Technology for referring the case to FIA in the first place.
The committee members warned the ministry of science that if any action is taken by FIA against Riazuddin Sheikh, the scientist who had achieved a major milestone by developing interferon (a typhoid vaccine) locally, they will also have to face the music.
The chairman committee, Dr Nadeem Ehsan directed the ministry of health to give formal approval for the clinical trial of typhoid vaccine, which was produced by a Pakistani, Dr Qasim, in Italy. A group of researchers led by Sheikh had been working on this vaccine in the Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology, Centre of Applied Molecular Biology and the Allama Iqbal Medical College (AIMC) and had successfully developed a low-cost, locally produced vaccine against Hepatitis-C, Dr Donia Aziz said in her report, adding for 2 years the scientists had been running from pillar to post to get the vaccine registered but had not received an approval from the ministry of health. Whereas 2 years ago both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology had approved the project and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had released nearly Rs 20 million for the projects.
The domestically-developed interferon was tested in a German laboratory for safety and was found safe in experiments on mice and rabbits, at par with the interferon approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Moreover, the locally-produced interferon injections are low-cost, with one of these costing between Rs 70 to Rs 100 compared with Rs 250 to Rs 900 for an imported injection.
