SMALL PLASTICS, BIG PUBLIC HEALTH IMPACT

Affordable polymer syringes, IV tubes and disposables from Indian manufacturers empowered mass vaccination, reduced infections and expanded healthcare delivery at unprecedented scale.

- By Team ET Now Machinist

When people think of lifesaving medical tools, it's easy to imagine high-tech scanners, robotic surgery or cutting- edge vaccines. But some of the most impactful contributors to public health in India are humble, polymer based devices that most of us rarely notice disposable syringes, intravenous tubes, blood bags and catheters. These everyday tools, made from specialized plastics, quietly underpin huge swathes of healthcare delivery, especially in mass immunisation and infection control campaigns.

India’s capacity to produce low-cost medical disposables is one of the country’s unsung industrial achievements. A cluster of domestic manufacturers have built an ecosystem capable of producing billions of devices annually. At its peak during the COVID-19 pandemic, HMD was producing around 3.75 lakh (375,000) syringes per hour in its Faridabad facilities and meeting massive national and global demand. In fact, HMD supplied at least 1.75 billion syringes used in COVID-19 vaccination campaigns worldwide, accounting for more than 13 percent of the 13.3 billion vaccines administered globally.

For decades, India's public health apparatus has relied on disposable polymer syringes and safety devices to drive immunisation programs for diseases like measles, hepatitis, polio and tetanus. These devices are designed for single use, dramatically reducing the risk that comes from reuse, a persistent source of infection transmission where sterilisation is inadequate. Auto-disable syringes have a builtin mechanism that makes them unusable after one injection. This simple yet effective design has been endorsed by the World Health Organization and is mandated for all major vaccination drives to safeguard communities against blood-borne diseases.