NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India on Sunday banned the export of antiviral drugs Remdesivir and its active pharmaceutical ingredients as demand skyrocketed due to a historic rise in COVID-19 infections and led to paralyzing scarcity in many parts.
New cases of COVID-19 reached 152,879 on Sunday, the sixth record increase in seven days, which overwhelms hospitals in some regions. India, known as the world’s pharmacy, has already curbed major exports of coronavirus vaccines.
In addition to the ban on Remdesivir “until the situation improves,” the health ministry said in a statement that manufacturers had been asked to increase supplies.
Seven Indian companies have licensed Gilead Sciences medicine, with an installed capacity of about 3.9 million units per month, for local use and exports to more than 100 countries.
The companies are: Cipla Ltd, Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd, Hetero Labs Ltd, Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd, Syngene de Biocon Ltd, Zydus Cadila Healthcare Ltd and Mylan Indian Unit.
In November the World Health Organization issued a conditional recommendation against the use of Remdesivir in hospitalized patients, regardless of the severity of the disease, saying there was no evidence that the drug improved survival and other results in these. patients.
However, many countries, including India, have continued to use it.
India leads the world in the average daily number of new infections reported in more than two weeks, accounting for one in six infections reported worldwide every day, according to a Reuters account.
Deaths have also risen, and the health ministry reported 839 fatalities on Sunday, the highest in more than five months, and reached 169,275.
The index of more than 13.35 million cases in India is the third highest in the world, behind only the United States and Brazil.
BLACK MARKETING
India’s drug regulator and some state governments have in recent days expressed concerns about the hoarding and blackmail of Remdesivir, which in some cases sells for more than 10 times the maximum retail price.
Social media posts on Sunday showed large queues of people in eastern Gujarat, in the west, hoping to buy injections of Remdesivir for patients with COVID-19.
“Every day the central government provides 50,000 injections of Remdesivir, but all are consumed,” Rajesh Tope, Maharashtra’s most affected state health minister, told reporters this week. “It’s possible for pharmacists and marketers to do black marketing and that needs to be verified.”
The federal health ministry wrote in Maharashtra, which is home to the financial capital Mumbai, urging local authorities to improve COVID-19 testing and deploy more manpower.
“The reception of health workers, the hiring of contract workers, needs to be speeded up,” said the letter from India’s top health bureaucrat, which pointed to a severe shortage of health workers in seven districts of Maharashtra.
Authorities have blamed the resurgence of the virus mainly on overcrowding and reluctance to wear masks, even as election rallies and religious rallies have continued in recent weeks.
Thousands of people gathered on the banks of the Ganges River in the city of Haridwar on Sunday to pray during the Kumbh Mela, where up to five million are expected on certain days.
Authorities have forced all people entering the area to take COVID-19 tests. But many devotees on Sunday gathered by the river without masks, in dense crowds.
Reports of Devjyot Ghoshal and Krishna N. Das in New Delhi, edited by William Maclean