In light of unprecedented spike in Covid-19 cases, the Union Health Ministry in coordination with the Department of Pharmaceuticals has made an interim allocation of 11 lakh Remdesivir injections to the 19 States/UTs for the period up to April 30.
“Remdesivir being an investigational therapy drug given in acute and severe versions of Covid-19 where oxygen support is a must, this allocation pertains to 14 States to which medical oxygen is allocated and 5 other states where the high volume of supplies are being observed,” the Union Health Ministry said Saturday in a statement.
Largest chunk of Remdesivir has been given to Maharshtra, which is seeing the highest number of infections every day, followed by Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu from April 21 to 30, as per the government data. The lifesaving drug supplied to these states have been procured from the manufacturers - Zydus Cadila, Hetero, Mylan, Cipla, Syngene/Sun, Jubilant and Dr. Reddys.
Meanwhile, the production capacity of Remdesivir has been ramped up from current level of 38 lakh vials per month to 74 lakh vials per month, and 20 additional manufacturing sites have been approved. Export of Remdesivir has also been prohibited by the government on April 11 in order to shore up domestic supplies.