Hyderabad: The efforts of the Telangana government to bring the vaccine testing laboratory to Hyderabad have paid off.
Vaccine testing laboratories are likely to be operational starting in August.
The Union State Minister for Houses G Kiswan Reddy on Saturday said the center had sanctioned two testing laboratories in this country.
One in Hyderabad at the National Institute of Animal Biotechnology under the Biotechnology Department, while others at the National Center for Science, Pune.
Until now there are two vaccine testing laboratories (VTT) in this country in the Central Medicine Laboratory in Kasauli and the National Institute of Biological in Noida.
“Funds have been released from PMCares funds on March 6 to establish a VTT laboratory in two more places – Hyderabad and Pune.
The start of the VTT operation in Hyderabad is expected in the next month,” said Kishan Reddy.
He said Hyderabad was home to many large pharmaceutical companies, Covid-19 vaccine production companies and relevant R & D institutions.
Setting up a new VTT in Hyderabad is a big step forward towards the comprehensive development of this sector which will also increase the production of Covid-19 vaccine, the Minister said.
The Telangana Industrial Minister KT Rama Rao wrote three letters to the health minister Union Harsh Vardhan in August, January 2021 and last month asked the center to be set on a war footing.
KTR said Hyderabad has emerged as a world vaccination capital as a third of the supply of global vaccines produced in Hyderabad.
The Minister even suggested that VTT can be arranged at national animal resource facilities for bio-medical research, Genome Valley.
Interestingly, the Union minister did not respond to the letters, but Kishan Reddy claimed that the decision was taken in March, 2021 itself and funds were released immediately.
The Union and Secunderabad MP Minister on behalf of the people of Hyderabad, has thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to sanction funds from “PMCares funds” to establish VTT in Hyderabad.