Nagpur: The scarcity of two crucial injections, Remdesivir and Tocilizumab, along with oxygen seems to have pushed Covid deaths in the district to record levels. Even though administration is trying to augment the supply, they are nowhere near success as yet.
The highest daily figure of Covid deaths of 113 on Monday comes one day after Sunday when city received no Remdesivir and Tocilizumab consignment and many hospitals ran out of stock. On Saturday too, city had received only 395 vials of Remdesivir that were allotted to government and a couple of other hospitals further aggravating shortage on Sunday.
After last week’s acute shortage of Remdesivir, city covid hospitals received 60% of their allotted numbers of beds on Monday. The hospitals had last got 100% of their Remdesivir demand and Tocilizumab on April 12.
As the acute shortage of Remdesivir and Tocilizumab, along with oxygen cylinders, started hitting the Covid patients hard, deaths seemed to have surged. On April 15, there were 74 deaths and figure went on increasing progressively until Monday when for the first time it crossed the century mark in the district.
On April 16, with shortage of continuing, deaths were 75, which went up to 79 the following day and to 85 on Sunday.
Though the link between dearth of drugs and increased fatality rate has not been clinically established, doctors feel the two factors are related and use of the two drugs has salvaged the condition in many critical cases.
Dr Anup Marar, convener of the Vidarbha Hospitals Association, said there is an uncanny association with the shortage of Remdesivir, Tocilizumab and oxygen with fatality rate rising unlike in the past. “With Tocilizumab, several patients were brought back from the verge of death and even Remdesivir had helped stabilize many aggravated cases,” he said. “Availability of these crucial injections could have surely pulled back many patients,” said Dr Marar.
Dr Manoj Purohit of Radiance hospital termed Tocilizumab as ‘Brahmastra’ in Covid battle. “Around 50% deaths could have possibly been avoided if Tocilizumab had been available.We were also bereft of enough Remdesivir and oxygen at the same time which proved fatal as patients slipped out of our hands,” he said.
Dr Pinak Dande of Dande hospital too said death rate had certainly increased when Remdesivir, Tocilizumab and oxygen were in short supply.