India has consistently added more than three lakh COVID-19 cases daily for almost a week now, setting global records for the highest single-day tally. As a result, the rising demand of effective medicines like Remdesivir has skyrocketed. While some are trying hard to help the needy, some are taking advantage of the short supply of Remdesivir.
In Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, a group of people were found selling fake Remdesivir. Needless to say, administering fake Remdesivir can have disastrous repercussions.
A 2009-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer Awanish Kumar Sharan took to Twitter detailing how to differentiate genuine Remdesivir from a fake one.
These are the points which can help you identify fake Remdesivir:
1. Look for “Rx” written just before the name of the injection on the front side of the packaging. Fake Remdesivir packages do not have it.
2. The genuine package reads as “100 mg/Vial” while the fake one has “100 mg/vial” written on it.
3. There is alignment error in the brand name. Notice the gap on the package of the Remdesivir injections. The fake vial has an increased gap.
4. On the fake package, there is another capitalisation error just below the brand name in 'Vial/vial'.
5. Yet another capitalisation error can be found at the bottom of the front side of the fake Remdesivir package. 'For use in' is written on the genuine package, whereas 'for use in' is written on the fake drug package.
6. The 'Warning' label on the back side of the box is in red on the genuine package. The fake one has a black warning label.
7. Below the warning label, key information “Covifir [brand name] is manufactured under the license from Gilead Sciences, Inc” is completely missing on the fake injection package.
8. You can also find a spelling error in the full address on the package containing the fake Remdesivir injection. It spells Telangana as 'Telagana'.
9. There is one more capitalisation error in the text identifying the drug-maker, Hetero Labs. The fake package reads India as 'india'.
