New Delhi, Nov. 12: Several states across India, including Bengal, are facing a severe shortage of life-saving vaccines against measles, diphtheria and tetanus, contrary to assurances made by the health minister to Parliament three weeks ago.

Figures of vaccine stocks and deliveries from state health authorities suggest that vaccine shortages between April and October 2008 ranged from 12 per cent for a vaccine against tuberculosis to 99 per cent for a vaccine against diphtheria and tetanus.

The vaccine crunch in Bengal, Orissa, Tripura and Kerala persist today, suggesting that health minister Anbumani Ramadoss had misled Parliament on October 21 when he asserted shortages of “one or two things... have already been sorted out,” CPM MP Brinda Karat said yesterday.

In a letter to Ramadoss, Karat said the continuing shortage concerned a range of vaccines, and that the information he had provided to Parliament was “not factually correct”.

Bengal, for instance, required 3,152,750 doses of the DT vaccine — which protects children from diphtheria and tetanus — but had received only 8,000 doses between April and October this year, a 99 per cent shortfall.

Bengal also received only 1,075,750 doses of the measles vaccine against its requirement of 1,916,750 doses (43 per cent shortage), vaccine inventory figures that Karat obtained from state health authorities have shown.

During this period, Bengal also experienced an 88 per cent shortage of the DPT (for diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) vaccine. In the first week of November, the state received 300,000 extra doses of DPT of the 13 million required.

Senior health ministry officials said some vaccines had been in short supply this year. “There was a shortage for some time. Public sector units producing vaccines were ordered closed, and this affected supply,” said an official.

The Centre earlier this year had ordered a shutdown of three public sector units in Coonoor (Tamil Nadu), Chennai and Kasauli on the ground that they were not meeting quality standards.

“The three vaccine production units did not even meet Indian good manufacturing practices (quality) requirements. I’d rather not give vaccines than give substandard vaccines,” Ramadoss said today. “The shortages mainly affected DPT and DT vaccines. We’ve ordered stocks from the private sector,” an official said.

Ramadoss had told Parliament on October 21 that “there were some shortages of one or two things, which have already been sorted out. I don’t see there is a problem anywhere in the country currently because of that.”

A senior executive of a private company that supplies vaccines to the government said there appeared to be a delay this year in ordering vaccines. “After we receive an order, it takes about three months to produce the vaccine.”

The immunisation programme aimed at protecting children from life-threatening diseases may have been severely compromised because of the failure to provide the vaccines, Karat said in her letter. Ramadoss said vaccines would be available from a new public sector vaccine production plant in Tamil Nadu that is expected to be operational within 24 months.