Hindustan Syringes to Increase Production
As the global race to find a coronavirus vaccine heats up, India’s biggest syringe manufacturer is ramping up production to churn out a billion units, anticipating a surge in demand.
Experts said medical essentials are also vital while the focus is on tackling the pandemic with the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
One of the world’s largest makers of syringes, Hindustan Syringes, said they are increasing the production of auto-disable nonreusable syringes from 700 million a year to one billion by 2021 to meet the expected demand.
Four to five billion syringes would be required even if 60% of the world’s population is immunized, said Rajiv Nath, Managing Director of Hindustan Syringes at their factory in northern Haryana state.
More than 30 candidate vaccines are currently being tested on humans, and with the coronavirus wrecking lives and economies, the government is hoping to deploy a vaccine as soon as possible.
The early responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were hampered by shortages in masks and PPEs. So the countries have already started building up their stockpile of vials, needles, and syringes.
Prashant Yadav, a healthcare supply chain expert at Harvard Medical School, said the country has
enough capacity for the first wave of vaccines, which would be given to priority groups only.But the syringe supply might start becoming a constraint in 2021 or 2022 when it gets to large-scale vaccination, and the dose demand would be greater than 10 billion.
So far, 140 million syringes have been ordered by UNICEF from Hindustan for COVAX, a global initiative to make sure vaccines are equally distributed to poorer nations.
Factories in India and China are expected to meet much of the world’s demand for syringes.
Hindustan Syringes is India’s biggest manufacturer of syringes with its primary markets in Europe, India, the Middle East, and the USA.
