Hindustan Syringes to supply 265 million syringes to govt for Covid shots

Medical syringe major Hindustan Syringes and Medical Devices Ltd (HMD) has received an order for supply of 265 million auto disable syringes from Government of India, said a top company official.

He said the government had issued a tender for 350 million pieces and the over Rs 650 crore turnover Hindustan Syringes was the lowest bidder.

"Supplies for the new order will happen till September this year. The order value will be about Rs55 crore. We will be completing the supplies for the earlier three orders for 0.5 ml auto disable syringes totaling 177.5 million pieces from the Indian government bagged by the end of this month," Rajiv Nath, Managing Director told IANS.

Nath said the company has allocated two thirds of its production capacity for Government of India orders and the balance for global UN customers.

Hindustan Syringes ships out 0.1 ml and 0.5 ml auto disposable Kojak syringes for global vaccination projects in developing world whether for Yellow Fever or Measles or Hepatitis B or Pentavalent or BCG and others.

This is in addition to Covid-19 vaccination requirements of 0.3 ml for Pfizer's vaccines or 0.5 ml auto disable Kojak for Astra Zeneca/ Serums or Bharat Biotech's vaccines, Nath added.

Hindustan Syringes had expanded its production capacity to cater to the increased demand for auto disposable syringes at an outlay of Rs. 100 crore.

"The investment for expansion which began last June will be completed in June 2021," Nath said.

From 500 million pieces per annum capacity of 0.5 ml auto disposable syringes in June 2020 the company is making about 800 million pieces and plans to take touch 1 billion pieces by this June and 1.2 billion pieces by this September.

The company produces over 2.5 billion assorted syringes a year and plans to scale it up to 3 to 3 billion by July this year.

This is the size sought by Public Healthcare in India and most countries for Covid. For Private Healthcare the Dispovan Disposable Syringes are still popular but we see a shift by the progressive hospitals who wish to assure their patients of higher injection safety. One Injection One Syringe.

"We have received orders for 240 million Kojak syringes for COVAX via UNICEF and 79 million for Brazil for Dispovan syringes via PAHO which we are executing alongside.

"We had shipped 140 million Kojak syringes to Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) in last December. We have recently sold 15 million syringes to the Japanese government. In totality we serve over 120 countries worldwide," Nath said.

According to him, over 440 million Kojak syringes will be supplied to Government of India's massive vaccination drive by September including 177 million by April this year alongside supplies of Dispovan syringes to the private hospitals and vaccination clinics.

--IANS

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