The Maharashtra Government on Friday ordered the suspension of use of a particular brand of Remdesivir vials, after nearly 90 Covid-19 patients developed side-effects on being administered the injections in three hospitals of Raigad district in Maharashtra.
The shocking incident came to light on Thursday, after the patients — who were administered Remdesivir injections with a brand name of ‘Covifor’ manufactured by the company Hetero Drugs — developed chills, drop in blood pressure, fall in SPU count, varying degrees of fever or other health issues in various hospitals.
Confirming the development, Maharashtra’s FDA Minister Rajendra Shingane said on Friday that the state government had ordered the suspension and withdrawal of ‘Covifor’ brand of Remdesivir vials manufactured by the company Hetero Drugs which resulted in side-effects in 90 patients.
In a video-statement released to the media separately, Raigad Collector Nidhi Choudhari said that he had ordered the suspension of’ Remdesivir vials with brand name ‘Covifor’ brand manufactured by M/s Hetero Drugs after he received complaints from the affected patients.
According to Choudhari, the Raigad district administration received 510 vials of Remdesivir which it distributed to various hospitals to treat the critical Covid-19 patients. “But, after we received complaints from the patients who developed side-effects, we suspended and withdrew the defective batch of vials,” she said.
“The condition of all the patients is stable now. There is no cause for worry. The situation is very much control,” the minister said.
Pending the chemical analysis of vials from all the batches of the defective brand of Remdesivir, the State FDA ordered the doctors not to prescribe the particular brand of the life saving drug to patients and withdrew the remaining stocks of the injection from all the hospitals to which the drug had been distributed to earlier.
It may be recalled that earlier this month, the Centre had brought all the brands of Remdesivir under Drug Price Control Order which slashed the MRP of different brands averaging to Rs 2,450 per injection, following an RIT application filed by Mumbai lawyer Vinod Tiwari. Tiwari had alleged a Rs 25,000 crore in the distribution of Remdesivir injections.