The Hindu : Thakur joins issue with Maneka

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 22, 2002

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National

Thakur joins issue with Maneka

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI May 21. The Union Health Minister, C.P. Thakur, today joined issue with the Union Animal Welfare Minister, Maneka Gandhi, stating that her allegations over the functioning of the ICMR's National Institute of Virology (NIV) at Pune were ``not correct''.

He told reporters that the animals kept in the institute for experiment on new drugs, vaccines and other pharmaceutical products were looked after well and that the allegations that they were being treated cruelly were incorrect.

The Health Ministry, he said, was taking all measures to ensure that the guidelines on proper maintenance of experimental animals were followed strictly in all medical research institutions under the ICMR.

Dr. Thakur was reacting to Ms. Gandhi's recent letter to the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, seeking a CBI inquiry into the working of the NIV. She said that in spite of spending huge amounts of public money on projects to improve the animal house in the institution and despite reminders by the Government's Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experimental Animals, the condition under which experimental animals were kept in the institution continued to be appalling.

Dr. Thakur said that he would soon meet Mr. Vajpayee and apprise him of the ``actual situation''. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, which intends to prevent infliction of unnecessary pain and suffering on animals, specifically mentions that nothing contained in the legislation shall render unlawful the performance of experiments on animals for the purpose of advancement of medical research, he said.

To a question, he said the Ministry was gearing up to meet any eventuality in the wake of the war-like situation on the Indo-Pakistan border. ``We are preparing for both conventional and unconventional war in the form of biological and chemical warfare.''

The Ministry had decided to quicken the process of coverage of the new regime for the treatment of tuberculosis under which the medical and paramedical staff were required to personally administer the drugs to the patients.

At present, about 45 per cent of the population was covered under the regime, called DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Strategy) and the aim was to cover the rest of the population by the end of the current year itself.

Till now, the plan was to make the coverage cent per cent by 2005.

Dr. Thakur said that on an initiative by India and several other countries, the World Health Organisation had agreed to ensure that representation was given to people of the developing nations at the top policy-making levels of the international organisation. The Director-General of WHO would prepare a proposal in this regard.

In a significant development, he said, the Director General of Health Services in the Health Ministry, S.P. Agarwal, was elected Vice-Chair of the committee which discussed technical issues at the recently-concluded meeting of the World Health Assembly.

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