HMD supplies first lot of 56 mn syringes to Covax facility

Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices (HMD), has sent its first shipment of 56 million pieces of KOJAK Auto Disable Syringes to Covax facility.

The Covax facility is a pooled procurement mechanism for new COVID-19 vaccines, through which COVAX will ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for each participating economy has ordered 140 million KOJAK AD Syringes from HMD to be supplied between August and December 2020.

“We have shipped out more than 56 million pieces of 5 ml auto disabled (AD) syringes for intramuscular syringes to Covax facility and will soon send the next shipment of 28 million Syringes by October end,” said Rajiv Nath, MD of Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices Ltd.

“While HMD is all geared up to meet the Syringe demands, they are still waiting on the Indian government to start creating a stockpile of syringes as being done by other countries,” informed the company through a statement.

“Should the government need 100 million KOJAK Auto-Disable Syringes for COVID-19 vaccines by the end of this year, we can easily offer them to lift the outstanding orders placed with us. However, the Indian government is yet to make a move or ordering though they have started consulting manufacturers for spare capacity availability beyond the standard immunisation programme. We plan to allocate 50 per cent of the total 0.5 ML AD syringes produced for the government of India and 50 per cent for export as we have got a global responsibility too. But we would appreciate clarity from the government soon,” added Nath.

The statement also informed that HMD, one of the largest suppliers to UN Agencies like UNICEF, UNOPS for Auto Disable Syringes for immunisation, has seen demand from other countries like Japan and US for disposable syringes and Indonesia for auto disposable syringes as countries start to stockpile in anticipation of COVID vaccine. HMD plans to scale up its production capacity to one billion of 0.5 ML by the middle of 2021 from 700 million AD syringes a year for global COVID-19 vaccination.

The company statement says, “As India gets ready for COVID-19 vaccine, the government should be well equipped with a secured stock of syringes in advance to administer a vaccine when it is approved and ready. At least 60 to 70 per cent of 1.3 billion people in India and 7.8 billion people worldwide will need syringes for COVID-19 vaccine.”