Talking to newspersons, he said that the health secretary had been apprised of the ``mismanagement'' in the Vaccine Institute in Vadodara and action was likely to be initiated against Institute Joint-Director U V Padiyar in a couple of days.

A team of five officials from the health department in Gandhinagar had recently raided Padiyar's office and seized some documents in connection with irregularities in purchase of air-condition plant, equipment and chemicals worth over Rs 20 lakhs. The raid had been carried out following evasive replies to the queries of senior health officials with regard to an inquiry instituted into purchases.

The Vaccine Institute would soon be producing anti-venom injections apart from anti-rabies vaccines, Bhatt said, adding that the state government purchased anti-venom injections worth Rs 1 crore annually from Haffkine Institute.

He said that a grand leprosy camp will be inaugurated at the SSG Hospital by Governor Anshuman Singh on January 1. Former CM of Madhya Pradesh Sunderlal Patwa will be the chief guest on the occasion.

According to Bhatt, over 300 leprosy patients will be operated by a team of 27 surgeons drawn from all over the world. Prominent surgeons conducting operations will be H Srinivasan of Chennai, Dr Gokhale of Pune, Dr S K Rao of Delhi and Dr Atul Shah of Mumbai.