Centre to discontinue Remdesivir allocation to states
Union minister of state for chemicals and fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday said the government has decided to discontinue Central allocation of Remdesivir to states
By Newsmeter Network Published on 29 May 2021 9:41 AM GMT
New Delhi: Union minister of state for chemicals and fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday said the government has decided to discontinue Central allocation of Remdesivir to states as the production of Remdesivir has been ramped up 10 times from 33,000 vials per day on 11 April to 3,50,000 vials per day.
The minister further said that the government has also increased the number of plants producing Remdesivir from 20 to 60 plants within a month. Now the Remdesivir supply in the country is much more than the demand, he added. Mr. Mandaviya, meanwhile, has directed the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Agency and CDSCO to continuously monitor the availability of Remdesivir in the country.
The Central government has also decided to procure 50 lakh vials of Remdesivir to maintain a strategic stock for emergency requirements, the minister added.
As per the ministry data, the government has overall allocated 98,87,000 vials of Remdesivir to the states. Telangana has received around 2,47,000 vials of Remdesivir from the Central government while Andhra Pradesh received around 5,41,000 vials.
Remdesivir is a patented drug that was recommended as an investigational therapy drug for acute and severe COVID-19 patients. This drug is to be administered only to patients under oxygen support. Seven pharmaceutical companies, including Cipla, Dr. Reddy's Lab, Hetero, Jubilant Pharma, Mylan, Syngene, and Zydus Cadila, manufacture Remdesivir in India under voluntary licences granted by Gilead Life Sciences USA, the company which holds the patent of Remdesivir.
During the peak of the second wave of the pandemic in April, there was an acute shortage of Remdesivir across the country. The drug was hoarded and black-marketed which too contributed to the shortage.
To scale up the production and to meet the domestic requirement, the export of Remdesivir was also prohibited on 11 April. From the third week of April, the Centre started allocating Remdesivir to states.
