Mumbai: In a significant move, the Maharashtra government will purchase 10,000 vials of Remdesivir from Bangladesh if it is out of stock in India. The step is crucial when the number of coronavirus positive patients has crossed 80,000- mark in the state. Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope said, "The state government will procure 10,000 vials of Remdesivir from Bangladesh, if they are not available in India.
Based on evidence from laboratory, animal and clinical studies, it has generated promising results in MERC-CoV and SARS, which are also caused by coronavirus. WHO suggests it may have some positive effects on COVID 19 treatment. This expensive medicine is being made available for poor and needy patients." He informed that the procurement will be made through the corporate social responsibility fund.
Tope said so far the injection has been purchased at the individual level. "However,it willnot be affordable for common people. Therefore, the state government has decided to purchase it and apply it to poor and needy patients," he noted. The Health Department official explained that Remdesivir is aninvestigational antiviral drug and it can help COVID 19 patients recover faster The United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) describes Remdesivir as a nucleoside ribonucleic acid (RNA) polymerase inhibitor.
Remdesivir injection helps in shortening the time to recovery in adults hospitalised with COVID 19. Medical Nutrition Therapy Doctorate Subhashree Roy admitted that early clinical trial results for the anti-viral drug Remdesivir have offered hope. "A study by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced that their trial showed Remdesivir treatment led to faster recovery in hospital patients with COVID-19, compared with placebo treatment. Preliminary results indicate that patients who received Remdesivir had a 31% faster time to recovery than those who received placebo. Specifically, the median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with Remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who received placebo," she noted.
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