A sole lab in Kasauli is ensuring Covid-19 vaccines are safe for use in India

India Today is the only network channel to have visited this lab in Kasauli to find out how they have been churning out batch clearances of a massive overload of vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Few are aware of the fact that vaccines that are manufactured by vaccine firms are not yet ready to be given to humans without further quality checks. In other words, vaccine makers have to be given a “blue tick” before their vaccines can reach the people. It is a process that has been followed ever since vaccines were being made for all immunisation purposes in India. The whole process became even more crucial as vaccines that would take decades to be manufactured and perfected were created for Covid-19 in less than a year. This is where the role of batch tests becomes extremely important a single lab in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh has been ensuring just this. The Central Drugs Laboratory in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh is the only World Health Organisation (WHO) prequalified and NABL accredited laboratory in the country responsible for conducting these crucial batch tests. This facility has been painstakingly testing every batch of anti-coronavirus vaccines along with other immunization vaccines in India. In other words, they grant the “blue tick”; without their approval for safety, the vaccines can’t be given in any part of India.