The Union Health Ministry on Friday sent a team of experts, headed by Drug Controller General of India, to Tamil Nadu for examining the Auto Disposable (AD) syringes, which the state found to be defective. A total of 150 million AD syringes are used in India. The Government introduced AD syringes in 2005. On Thursday, the Centre received a letter from state Health Minister M R K Panneerselvam, complaining that AD syringes supplied by the Centre were defective.In December 2007, the Centre had sent a consignment of AD syringes to the state. In his letter to Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, Panneerselvam said health workers in Tiruchi found that the needles of some syringes in this batch had rusted and some of them had dust inside the cylinder.The state immediately discarded all the syringes that it had got from the Centre and reverted to ordinary disposable syringes. There is nothing to panic, Ramadoss told The Indian Express. “The team has already left and will examine the product. This is for the first time that we have got such a complaint. This doesn’t mean that the whole country is getting defective syringes,” he said, adding that the ministry would decide on the future course of action, once the report came. “It will take some more days for the experts to come to any conclusion,” he said.The syringes that came under the brand name BD Solo Shot IX were imported from Spain, according to Health Department officials in Tamil Nadu. A total of 102 such syringes were found in Batch 0612048 (expiry date November 2011) in Tiruchi. As soon as reports about these defective needles were received, all district health officials were instructed to check their stocks of AD syringes and report any defective pieces. Similar reports also came from Dindigul district.Tamil Nadu gets 30-35 lakh syringes every two-three months for vaccination drive. The state has sent samples of the defective syringes for examination at the Central Drug Laboratory in Kolkata.
