4 held for illegal Covid vaccination
Police arrested four persons for allegedly administering a Covid-19 vaccine to 18 people illegally in a Dadri pathology laboratory on Tuesday.
Police identified the suspects in the case as Rizwan Ali, Sanjay Shrivastava, Sudhakar Yadav, and Suresh Kumar Singh. They are all employees of Ghaziabad’s Flores Hospital and were present at the laboratory at the time on Tuesday. The hospital administrator Mahesh Chaudhury was also booked and was absconding till the time this copy went to press.
The hospital was to conduct clinical trials of Zydus Cadila’s Covid-19 vaccine ZYCOV-D. The lab’s owner Vikas Vashishth was also booked in the case and was absconding till press time.
Gautam Budh Nagar drug inspector Vaibhav Babbar, in his police complaint, said the health department visited Gopal Pathology Lab on Tuesday after it was informed of an unauthorised vaccination drive. The team allegedly found a “free corona vaccination camp” there. The team seized 279 vials of the vaccine from the lab and said that 10 vials had been used.
“Ali, Shrivastava, Yadav and Singh were present there and, upon questioning, said they were employees of Flores Hospital. Shrivastava was the supervisor. He said the hospital administrator Chaudhury had given the team vaccine vials, syringes, etc,” Babbar alleged in the FIR.
Vashishth’s uncle Sanjeev, whose name and number appeared on a banner advertising the camp, blamed the incident on “communication gap.”
“The hospital had permission for clinical trials. They had conducted such trials in Ghaziabad and then approached Gopal Pathology Lab for trials here too. A few relatives of ours and people in the area got the dose. The hospital should have informed the local administration in advance to avoid such a situation,” he said.
Drug inspector Babbar said that the vaccine vials were allegedly not stored at the required temperature either, possibly rendering them useless. “The four staff members were not technically trained for vaccinating people. The lab too was not registered with the health department,” he said.
District chief medical officer
Deepak Ohri said that the hospital had allegedly not informed the health department or district administration of the trial, which is required by law. A clinical trial involves human subjects and has several phases during which the safety and efficacy of the vaccine is tested. The Zydus Cadila spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Rajveer Singh Chauhan, station house officer of Dadri police station, said, “A case has been registered against six persons under Indian Penal Code’s section 420 (cheating), sections 51 and 52 of the Indian Medical Council Act, and sections 18-A and 27 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. The four arrested persons were produced in court and sent to jail.”
Flores Hospital owner Dr Manoj Kumar could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. On Tuesday, however, he had said that he had the required permissions from the government of India to conduct the clinical trial. “We signed an agreement with the Dadri lab as a satellite centre for the trials. We had no idea that the local district health department’s permission was needed too,” he had said.