Amid reports of shortage and hoarding of Remdesivir, Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday said the production capacity of the anti-viral drug, which is used in the treatment of COVID-19 patients, has now been increased to 90 lakh vials per month. Earlier, it was 40 lakhs vials per month, said the Minister of State of Chemicals and Fertilisers. He added that the production capacity will soon be increased to 3 lakh vials per day.
"Since 12th April, 25 new manufacturing sites for #Remdesivir's production have been approved. Production capacity is now ramped up to ≥90 lakhs vials per month, earlier it was 40 lakhs vials/month," Mandaviya tweeted.
"Very soon, 3 lakh vial/day will be produced . Monitoring is being done on daily basis. We would not leave any stone unturned to supply #Remdesivir," he added.
Meanwhile, in a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Maharashtra Chief Minster Uddhav Thackeray asked permission to import Remdesivir to tackle the surge in COVID-19 cases.
Speaking on Remdesivir shortages, Uddhav said, "It is not known how effective Remdesivir is but it surely reduces the period of hospitalisation." "The state should get Remdesivir supply based on the number of patients it has," he said. Maharashtra needs 70,000 vials of Remdesivir every day but is getting only 27,000, and it should be allowed to import the medicine, he added.
In the meeting, Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa also claimed that the state government is finding it difficult to procure adequate quantities of Remdesivir. He sought two lakh doses for the next 10 days from the Centre.
Besides, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot openly accusing the Centre of adopting a biased attitude in supplying life Remdesivir to the States. On Thursday, the state government received just 28,500 Remdesivir injections while Gujarat got 1.63 lakh injections and Madhya Pradesh received 92,200 injections despite the fact that Rajasthan has a much higher number of active cases than these two states, said the ministers. Going with the distribution percentage, it is clear that Rajasthan has received just 27.50 pc of injections as compared to active cases while Gujarat has been given 194% and MP has been given 112%, they added.
