Pune: Baramati Police have arrested four persons for allegedly selling Paracetamol in vials of Remdesivir.
There is a huge demand for Remdesivir injection in Maharashtra due to a rise in COVID-19 patients. People are witnessing difficulties in search of Remdesivir as the demand for the injection has been increasing day by day due to the surge in coronavirus cases across the country.
Some people are taking advantage of this by black marketing, while some people have started selling artificial injections. Police have busted a racket and arrested four members of one such gang in Baramati, Pune.
One of these members used to work at Baramati's Covid Care Center and used to collect empty bottles from there.
The gang used to refill the bottle with Paracetamol liquid and pack it such that it would look original. Then these artificial Remediesvir injections were sold in black market for 35-35 thousand rupees to patients.
The police have arrested four members of this gang named Prashant Dharat, Shankar Bhise, Dilip Gaikwad and Sandeep Gaikwad. All four accused have been booked as per Section 18 and Section 27 (1) (2) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Senior Police Inspector Narayan Shirgaonkar has said, "We will probe the case and will find to how many patients this gang sold the vials of Paracetamol."
Remdesivir is considered a key anti-viral drug in the fight against COVID-19. Several states across the country have asked for more supplies amid the record surge in COVID-19 infections.
Meanwhile, India reported its highest-ever single-day spike of COVID-19 cases with over 2.34 lakh new cases and more than 1,300 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the Union Health Ministry on Saturday.
In the last 24 hours, 1,341 COVID-related deaths were reported in the country taking the death toll to 1,75,649. As many as 2,34,692 new COVID-19 cases have been reported in India in the last 24 hours.
With this, the total number of cases has gone up to 1,45,26,609. The active number of cases stands at 16,79,740. In the last 24 hours, 1,23,354 people recovered from the disease. With this, the total recoveries reached 1,26,71,220.