The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration issued a circular on Friday and made some documents mandatory to buy two Covid-19 drugs, antiviral drug remdesivir, and anti-inflammatory medicine tocilizumab. Documents including Aadhar card, doctor’s prescription, consent form, a Covid-19 positive report, and the contact details of the purchaser is strictly required even if it is a close relative. These two drugs are still under trials as a possible treatment for Covid-19. Huge demand due to increased prescription led the medicines to be purchased at an alarming rate.
FDA Minister Rajendra Shingne said that decision was made due to complaints about drugs being sold in black. He said that information about the drugs being purchased and sold at an inflated rate made them take the extreme step. Now, a track of sale and use of these drugs is to be kept. Some doctors opposed the move claiming about the difficulties of patients’ relatives to acquire so many documents. A regulatory authority is investigating if hospitals are keeping the drugs after procuring these directly from the manufacturers.
Mumbai hospitals get it directly from manufactures while some are imported. Two individual suppliers also receive it from manufacturers. Shingne visited Masina Hospital in Byculla and a wholesale druggist store for surprise checks. The FDA official who accompanied him however confirmed that they did not find any discrepancies. Maharashtra has the highest number of cases in India as of July 10.
Times of India quoted, “Since these drugs may have shown encouraging results on critical Covid-19 patients, their demand has gone up in the last few weeks,” as said by Shingne . He also added that licensed companies were asked to expedite the production of these drugs.
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