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M Chhaya in Kolkata
Kolkata-based National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Disease is developing a vaccine to combat cholera.
West Bengal has witnessed several outbreaks of the dreaded disease in the recent past.
The immediate need for the cholera antidote is being met by imports from Vietnam.
"The vaccine -- VA-1.3 -- is in an advanced stage of human trials, and the reports so far are encouraging," NICED director Sujit Kumar Bhattacharya said.
NICED scientists have been successfully carrying out trials of the new vaccine for the past one year.
Health officials said the strain of cholera found in the state is resistant to medicines and vaccine currently in use.
"Bacteria like vibrio cholerae and salmonella typhis have developed resistance to a broad spectrum of antibiotics like norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin, cefotaxime and centamycin," NICED researchers said.
The last indigenous vaccine used by the city civic body went out of use some three decades ago after the cholera germs developed total immunity to it.
At least six people have died from the disease in Howrah town since the past fortnight. More than 20 per cent of the patients admitted with gastro-enteritis in different hospitals of the town have been diagnosed with cholera.
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