Hyderabad, Oct. 22: Bharat Ratna APJ Abdul Kalam today exhorted Indian scientists to develop vaccines for the prevention of the widely prevalent and dreaded HIV and malaria in the country.

Launching Revac-B (Recombinant vaccine for Hepatitis-B) of Bharat Biotech International Ltd (BBIL) at a function here, he said that though a vaccine for Hepatitis-B was developed, the task of designing, developing and marketing vaccines for malaria and HIV remained unaccomplished. Many HIV vaccines were developed in the United States but only a few of them were short-listed.

He emphasised the need to produce cost-effective vaccines to make them affordable to the poor.

Indian Institute of Science emeritus professor Dr G. Padmanabhan said that the vaccine was a cheap remedy to prevent diseases in highly populated country like India. Development and manufacture of vaccines indigenously was the effective way of tackling the problems confronted by the country.

Technology Development Board secretary SB Krishnan, Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences director Dr. Kakarla Subba Rao, BBIL chairman and managing director Dr. Krishna Ella also spoke.

The international standard biotechnology plant of BBIL was dedicated to the scientists of India at the function.