NEW DELHI: What happened to the biological specimens whom US scientists had collected from Surat during the recent plague outbreak?

Health Ministry officials say the materials were not handed over to them as it should have been and the US scientists deny that they took the material with them. “We have no cluck as to what they did with the materials,” said Dr. AK. Mukhesi, Director. The Health Ministry had made it clear to the Americans before they left that “taking the material out of the country is illegal.” Asked to explain, Dr. May Chu of the US Centers of Disease Control at Fort Collins in Colorado said in a fax message:” We did not bring any of the plague related biological materials out of India nor did we send any material out of the country.”

Dr. Chu, one of the four US scientists who were part of the World Health Organization (WHO) team, said the materials “were either left at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) laboratory in Delhi or with Dr. K.B. Sharma,” a retired microbiologist and presently consultant to WHO. But NICD has vehemently denied that the material was handed over to it.

Dr, Sharma was not available to comment in what capacity he took custody of the samples from the US scientists and why the material was not handed over to the Indian Government.

In addition, they collected sera samples from houses they visited and also samples from stray dogs.

Haffkine Institute Director Dr. N. Yamule said that the only offered the institute’s facilities to the US scientists. “They have taken all the materials back with them ‘and did not leave anything behind.”

NICD sources, who did not want to be named, alleged that the US scientists were more keen on collecting specimens than on testing them in the presence of NICD staff, For instance just before their departure from NICD on their last working day in India the US scientists, accompanied by Dr. Sharma, demanded two samples of dowser a kept in NICD’s freezer, NICD scientists said they refused.

“When it became evident that no specimen could be taken out of NICD laboratory, the US team flew to Surat where a duplicate set of samples are kept at the civil hospital,” the NICD sources said.

According to NICD director Dr. K.K. Datta, who has assured that no material had left India, but NICD is wondering why the material was not handed over to its laboratory.

Article extracted from this publication >>  November 11, 1994