KARACHI: In a historical breakthrough in health and medical sciences, Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) has successfully achieved lab-scale formulation of Pakistan’s first indigenous human anti-rabies vaccine.
This milestone positions the country on the path toward self-reliance in combating dog-bite cases that claim many lives every year.
The government’s estimates suggest some 2,000 to 5,000 people die from rabies with dog-bite remaining the major source of the virus found in humans. It remains unknown though how many people get cured through administrating anti-rabies vaccine.
There may be running into millions doses a year. Pakistan imports all the vaccines including rabies worth Rs26 billion a year on discounted and supported price from global partners. The import burden is anticipated to surge to Rs100 billion when GAVI withdraws its support by 2031.
The pharmaceutical industry officials confirmed that this is the first-ever indigenous human vaccine developed from a locally achieved biological molecule, creating a new history in the health and medical sciences in Pakistan.
The World Bank supported the project. It was implemented by the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
Dow University started commercial production of anti-rabies vaccine from Chinese raw material last year, naming it ‘Dow Rab’. Now the university has developed its own indigenous biomolecule that will be used to develop the vaccine.
This would reduce the country’s heavy dependence on imported vaccines worth billion of rupees in a year.
According to the university’s website, its Linkedin’s post, and confirmation by its officials to Business Recorder “this (the vaccine) purified, inactivated, lyophilised vaccine has been developed from a locally isolated rabies virus strain, marking a critical step forward in the fight against rabies in Pakistan”.
With lab-scale success achieved, the project will now progress to the manufacturing of clinical trial batches for the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) approval, “bringing us closer to national vaccine production and use,” the DUHS announcement read.
Current state of vaccines in Pakistan
Speaking at International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi, the other day, Macter, Director Quality Operations and Biotech, Farooq Mustafa said Pakistan completely depends on imported vaccines, which are donated and supplied at discounted price worth totaling around Rs26 billion a year with the support of GAVI, UNICEF and WHO.
The GVAI support is ending by 2031. This will increase financial burden to Rs100 billion annually in vaccine imports that comes to around four time of the federal health budget at Rs27 billion.
The anticipated development do not only suggests a looming crisis in the healthcare system of Pakistan, but at the same time provides an opportunity to the country to shift its focus towards achieving self-reliance in vaccine manufacturing indigenously.
Mustafa also wrote in an article that Pakistan produces virtually no antigens for the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) vaccines domestically.
“We lack essential seed banks, have minimal university-based vaccine development programmes, and operate with regulatory guidelines that are inadequate for sophisticated vaccine manufacturing. Our clinical trial expertise remains severely limited, creating bottlenecks in bringing locally developed vaccines to market,” he said.
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