Ahmedabad: Cadila Pharmaceuticals shuts Dholka factory as 26 workers test Covid-19 positive

AHMEDABAD: City-based Cadila Pharmaceuticals has shut its factory in Dholka after as many as 26 workers tested positive for Covid-19. This is perhaps the first instance in Gujarat where a pharmaceuticals company has been forced to shut operations due to workers being infected with the novel coronavirus.
Among various other drugs, the Dholka facility manufactured Sepsivac, which is being tested for treatment of Covid-19 patients.The project is being executed by Cadila Pharma and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
An official privy to the development said that the Sepsivac project was on and there was no impact on it due to the current shutdown as the infected persons were not in that department. The company has already a large stock of Sepsivac immunomodulators, so there won’t be any significant impact on Phase 3 clinical trials which will commence soon, he added.
“Recently, 26 of our employees at our Dholka facility tested positive for Covid-19. Following this, we have closed operations on our own, and are undertaking deep sanitization of the plant and its surroundings,” the company said in a media statement on Thursday.
The issue came to light when one of the employees in the packaging department was feeling unwell and went to a clinic in Dholka where he was advised to consult doctors at Sola Civil Hospital. After testing positive for Covid-19 there, contact tracing and tracking of 30 other employees in the packaging division was carried out, said H G Koshia, commissioner, Food and Drug Control Administration, Gujarat.
“Unfortunately, this is the first pharma company in Gujarat to close due to this issue. The reason behind this is the unpredictable character of the coronavirus. All the employees who tested positive were asymptomatic,” he added.
Gujarat contributes more than 30% of the country’s pharma production and according to Koshia, the pharma factories of the state are running at least 80% of their capacity. There are at least four companies with production facilities in Gujarat that are doing testing for vaccines to combat Covid-19.