NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India on Sunday banned the export of antiviral drug Remdesivir and its active pharmaceutical ingredients as demand rose due to a record increase in COVID-19 infections and in many parts led to crippling deficiencies.
New cases COVID-19 rose Sunday to 152,879, the sixth record rise in seven days, overwhelming hospitals in some regions. India, known as the pharmacy of the world, has already halted the large export of coronavirus vaccines.
In addition to the Remdesivir ban “until the situation improves”, the Ministry of Health said in a statement that manufacturers had been asked to sharpen their stock.
Seven Indian companies have licensed the Middle Gilead Sciences, with an installed capacity of approximately 3.9 million units per month, for local use and export to more than 100 countries.
The companies are: Cipla Ltd, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd, Hetero Labs Ltd, Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd, Biocon Ltd’s Syngene, Zydus Cadila Healthcare Ltd and the Indian unit of Mylan.
The World Health Organization issued a conditional recommendation in November against the use of Remdesivir in hospitalized patients, regardless of the severity of the disease, and said there was no evidence that the drug improves survival and other outcomes in these patients.
However, many countries, including India, still used it.
India is the world leader in the daily average number of new infections reported in more than two weeks, according to one of the six infections reported daily worldwide.
Deaths have also increased, with the Ministry of Health reporting 839 deaths on Sunday – the highest in more than five months – bringing the total to 169,275.
India’s count of more than 13.35 million cases is the third highest worldwide, behind only the United States and Brazil.
BLACK MARKETING
The drug regulator of India and some state governments have in recent days expressed concern about storage and black marketing of Remdesivir, which in some cases is sold at more than ten times the maximum selling price.
Social media messages on Sunday showed large queues of people in the western state of Gujarat waiting to buy Remdesivir injections for COVID-19 patients.
“Every day, the central government gives 50,000 Remdesivir injections, but all are digested,” Rajesh Tope, India’s health minister in Maharashtra’s hardest hit state, told reporters this week. “Pharmacists and retailers may be doing black marketing and this needs to be checked.”
The federal Ministry of Health wrote to Maharashtra, home of the financial capital Mumbai, asking local authorities to improve the COVID-19 test and deploy more manpower.
‘The discussion of health workers, the hiring of contractual health workers should be expedited,’ reads the letter from India’s leading health bureaucrat, indicating the acute shortage of health workers in seven districts of Maharashtra.
Authorities have blamed the revival of the virus for the congestion and unwillingness to wear masks, even though election rallies and religious rallies have continued in recent weeks.
Thousands of people gathered on Sunday on the banks of the Holy Ganges River in Haridwar City for prayers during the Kumbh Mela – where up to five million are expected on certain days.
Authorities have made it mandatory for all people entering the area to do COVID-19 tests. But many devotees gathered without masks on Sunday at the river in a dense crowd.
Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal and Krishna N. Das in New Delhi, edited by William Maclean