TN begins selling remdesivir directly to private hospitals

TN begins selling remdesivir directly to private hospitals

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:20.05.2021 

The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday started selling antiviral drug remdesivir directly to private hospitals.

Chief minister M K Stalin distributed the first batch, containing 960 vials, to 25 hospitals at a sales counter set up at Nehru Stadium in Chennai.

Thestatehealthdepartment has launched an online portal (tnmsc.tn.gov.in) for selling the drug to hospitals. As many as 343 hospitals in the state have registered themselves on the portal, and 151 have requested remdesivir by submitting requisite documents (patients’ medical records and ID proofs), according to official data.

After verification, a representative of these hospitals can collect the drug from Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation (TNMSC) counters set up at Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem,Trichy andTirunelveli. Earlier private hospitals asked Covid-9 patients' relatives to buy drugs directly. This led to black marketsaleof thedrug for up to ₹40,000 per vial and excess crowd at TNMSC counters. Now private hospitals are barred from asking patients’ relatives to buy the drug.

Black market sales have been controlled to an extent after police intervention. Even on Wednesday, three men from Thanjavur were arrested for selling the drug in black at ₹23,000 per vial.

Meanwhile,relatives of Covid patients from southern districts staged a protest outside Madurai District Collectorate on Wednesday demanding remdesivir.Tokensweredistributed to these people at TNMSC counter in Madurai on Saturday i.e., a day before the announcement on new sales arrangement was made. They dispersed after police convinced them about the new procedure.