Maharashtra to procure 10,000 vials of Remdesivir, make it available for poor
As Maharashtra crossed the 80,000 mark with 2,436 new COVID-19 cases reported in the state on June 5, Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Saturday (June 6) said the government would procure 10,000 vials of Remdesivir drug to treat COVID-19 patients.
Tope said, in a tweet, that the medicine that cost around $4,000 for a full course would be made available for the poor and needy patients in the state. He added that the WHO had suggested that the drug might have some positive effects in the treatment of the disease.
GoM to procure 10k vials of Remdesivir. Based on evidence from Laboratory, animal and clinical studies, It has generated promising results in MERS- CoV and SARS which are also caused by Corona Virus.1/2@DrLahanetp @CMOMaharashtra @ChaiMIRROR
— Rajesh Tope (@rajeshtope11) June 6, 2020
While 1475 patients had been cured on June 5, as many as 35,156 patients had been discharged from the hospitals so far. The total active cases stood at 42,215.
On June 4, American biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences announced that the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) had approved the usage of Remdesivir for treatment of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients with severe disease.
The company had also said the firms that were licensed to manufacture Remdesivir in India—Cipla, Hetero Drugs, Jubilant Life Sciences and Mylan—could fix the price of the drug in the country, reported Economic Times. Gilead Sciences had said it would begin supplying its own brand of Remdesivir in India from July, the report added.
