BJP slams Congress, accuses it of ‘derailing India’s vaccination programme’

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 16

The BJP on Wednesday accused the Congress of “derailing India’s vaccination programme, promoting vaccine hesitancy hesitancy and vaccine wastage in the country”.

“The Congress party has sinned by doing all of it and also profiteering in Punjab. People will not forgive you for this,” party spokesperson Sambit Patra said. He also challenged Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to reveal when they have received their first and second shots of Covid vaccines

A Congress leader claimed that Covaxin contains the serum of a newborn calf. “In an RTI response, the Modi Govt has admitted that Covaxin consists newborn calf serum .....which is a portion of clotted blood obtained from less than 20 days young cow-calves, after slaughtering them. THIS IS HEINOUS! This information should have been made public before,” Gaurav Pandhi wrote, sharing an RTI response

RTI reply to applicant Vikas Patni has suggested that newborn calf serum has been used to make the Covid-19 vaccine, Covaxin. The “newborn calf serum is used in the revival process of Vero cells, which is further used for the production of coronavirus during the manufacturing of Covaxin,” read the response by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation.

The RTI asked, “Does vaccines procedure use FBS in making of corona vaccines in any form, composition and ingredient made by Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute and approved by the Indian government of department?”

The answer said, “As per information provided by the firm, newborn calf serum is used in the revival process of vero cells which are used in the production of coronavirus during manufacturing of Covaxin bulk vaccine of M/S Bharat Biotech.”

The Union Health Ministry also issued a detailed statement saying that the final vaccine (Covaxin) does not contain newborn calf serum at all and the calf serum is not an ingredient of the final vaccine product.

“Facts have been twisted and misrepresented in these posts. Newborn calf serum is used only for the preparation/growth of vero cells. Different kinds of bovine and other animal serum are standard enrichment ingredient used globally for vero cell growth. Vero cells are used to establish cell lives which help in production of vaccines. This technique has been used for decades in polio, rabies, and influenza vaccines,” the Centre said.

“These vero cells, after the growth, are washed with water, chemicals (also technically known as buffer), many a times to make it free from the newborn calf serum. Thereafter, these vero cells are infected with coronavirus for viral growth.”

The vero cells are completely destroyed in the process of viral growth, the Centre said

“Thereafter, this grown virus is also killed (inactivated) and purified. This killed virus is then used to make the final vaccine, and in the final vaccine formulation, no calf serum is used.

The makers of Covaxin, Bharat Biotech, have also responded to the allegations levelled by the Congress leader.