The former Minister and chairman of BLDE Society M.B. Patil has criticised the Union and State governments for not addressing COVID-19 drug scarcity, especially Remdesivir.
He visited hospitals in Vijayapura on Thursday and found that there was a severe scarcity of COVID-19 drugs.
He accused the Centre of discriminating between States while releasing injection doses. While Gujarat got 1.64 lakh doses and Madhya Pradesh got 92,000 doses, Karnataka got only 25,400 doses. This is despite the fact that Gujarat had only 14,000 cases as against 40,000 in Karnataka, he said. This is injustice, he added.
He argued that during the first wave domestic sales of the injection were approximately 461 crore, but got reduced to 41 crore in February this year.
The government allowed manufacturers to export the injection as domestic sales were falling. The Centre banned exports 20 days ago. But supplies are being delayed as they had to wait for two weeks for sterility tests.
It shows a clear failure on the part of the State government, he said.
The BLDE Society Hospital had only got 382 and 482 doses in the last two days and that was not enough to treat the rising number of patients. The hospital plans to augment its oxygen supplying capabilities to 26 kilolitres from the present 13 kilolitres, in two weeks. The hospital is also fitting 100 jumbo cylinders in its wards, he said.
