‘I have been receiving frantic calls from Covid patients and their kin for Remdesivir’.
New Delhi: Covid-19 cases have touched 26,000 in Delhi, and patients are struggling to find oxygen, beds in hospitals and life-saving drugs such as Remdesivir. According to chemists, there is an acute shortage of drugs in Delhi as the manufacturers have not produced sufficient drugs until now.
According to a chemist in South Delhi, the drugs are expected in Delhi after 25 April and later on, there will be uninterrupted supply in Delhi. This is after Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the pharma companies to ramp up the production of life-saving drugs such as Remdesivir, Tocilizumab, Hydroxychloroquine and Covid vaccine.
In order to take stock of the situation, The Sunday Guardian visited three authorized distributors, and one Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Kendra in East Delhi to understand the situation.
There are eight authorized distributors in Delhi who are allowed to distribute Remdesivir and other life-saving drugs to public.
Pawan Jha, a shopowner in South Delhi, told The Sunday Guardian, “We normally get 1,000 vials of Remdesivir from the manufacturer. There is a shortage of drugs in India. I am one of eight authorized distributors of Remdesivir injection in Delhi. I received the last lot of Remdesivir drugs on 10 April and since then, there is no supply.”
He further said, “We were supposed to get Remdesivir medicine of 1,000 vials on 20 April, but it was diverted to AIIMS, Delhi, as there was some emergency in the hospital.”
“I have been receiving frantic calls from Covid-19 patients and their kin for Remdesivir. How can I provide it to them when I don’t have the stock? The situation is really very grim,” Pawan told The Sunday Guardian.
After talking to several people, he was assured that Remdesivir will be made available by 25 April. “For the past 10 days, I have been making frantic calls to other distributors and agents of manufacturers. As of now, I have been assured that Remdesivir will be made available to us by 25 April. This is the case all over Delhi. Except for one or two chemist shops, no one is getting the drugs on time,” he told The Sunday Guardian.
Aark Pharmaceutical in Green Park, Delhi, is one of the major distributors of Remdesivir in the city. Even they ran out of stock for two days.
People throng outside the pharmaceutical outlet to purchase the drugs. The situation was such that they had to call police to control the crowd.
An employee, who does not wish to be named, told The Sunday Guardian, “We have not received the stock for the past two days. We normally receive somewhere around 1,000-2,000 vials from the manufacturers. People should come to us some other day.”
He further said, “We give Remdesivir to patients who are admitted in Delhi hospitals. We begin distributing tokens around 9 am.”
The Sunday Guardian also visited the Pradhan Mantri Jan Aaushadhi Kendra in East Delhi.
On condition of anonymity, the shopkeeper told The Sunday Guardian, “We were supposed to get Remdesivir, but because of the shortage of drugs, we are not getting the medicine. The government is only distributing to the authorized dealers in Delhi. Several people came to my shop, asking for Remdesivir injection. But they had to leave with a heavy heart.”