Synthetic plasma yet to be destroyed

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, July 21

The blood plasma that was found to be synthetic and was declared officially unfit to be used by human beings is yet to be destroyed by the Bathinda Health Department.

The synthetic plasma is still stored in the cooling van in which it was recovered while being stored as blood plasma.

The Health Department lacks funds as it claimed that over Rs 2.25 lakh is required to destroy the complete recovered plasma. However, now the fund-starved department is searching any other way to get it destroyed and had requested the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) to declare the recovered plasma as ‘general waste’, following which the destruction cost would be reduced and it can be destroyed easily.

The recovered synthetic plasma was declared ‘unfit for human consumption’ in the previous month. The recovered plasma packets was earlier divided and sent to the Common Bio-Medical Waste Treatment Facility (CBMWTF) by the Drug Department in Bathinda to get it disposed of. However, the department decided to not to dispose until the reports of synthetic FFP are tabled but now, the department which had been facing a fund crunch is in a Catch-22 situation.

On June 13, above 21,700 packets of synthetic ‘Fresh Frozen Plasma’ (FFP) were recovered in Bathinda in which lab technicians of two private hospitals had been found allegedly involved in and were later arrested. However, the hospital authorities had denied having any knowledge about the role of the arrested lab technicians.

A Kerala-based company had manufactured the blood storage packets and a dealer-based in Ludhiana was its authorised dealer in the state, who supplied it to a Bathinda-based dealer who further violated the norms and sold the same to the five arrested accused. The sixth accused, Zahir Vohra, was also arrested in June by the police. Zahir was the signing authority in Reliance Life Science in Mumbai and he gave cheques to the accused involved in manufacturing of the synthetic FFP, the police said.

Besides Zahir, five other accused, including Paramjit Singh, a lab technician at Max Hospital, Paramjit’s brother Narinder Singh, Dilbagh Singh, a lab technician at Adesh Medical College, Paramjit Singh, a medical shop owner, and Lal Bahadur, the driver of the truck carrying the synthetic plasma, were arrested under Sections 420, 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and Section 18 (C) of the Drugs and Cosmetic Act at the Bathinda Sadar police station.

The police had also recovered about Rs 38 lakh from four different accounts of the five accused who are in judicial custody.

Amit Duggal of the Drug Zonal Authority, Bathinda, said: “We had not destroyed the synthetic plasma yet as it would cost us Rs 35 per kg charge from private institutions that destroy bio-medical waste. Hence, it would cost above Rs 2.25 lakh for the complete destruction process. Now, we had requested to the PPCB that the plasma recovered is made of soya, milk, egg and other products and hence, it can be destroyed under ‘general waste’ category. If permitted, it would cost less for destruction.”