To curb the illegal sale of essential Covid drugs, the Uttar Pradesh police has launched an extensive drive to check the black-marketing, hoarding and overcharging of remdesivir and other drugs used for treatment of critical COVID-19 patients across the state.
The UP special task force (UP STF) has been pressed into service to track the unscrupulous elements, Addl Chief Secretary, Home, Awanish Kumar Awasthi said.
Besides, police forces of various districts have been conducting rigorous drives all across the state to curb the hoarding, black-marketing and overcharging of essential covid-19 drugs including Remdesivir, FabiFlu and Tocilimuzab.
The Uttar Pradesh Police has constituted special teams to keep a strict vigil on the high-load areas to check the sale of fake Remdesivir injections.
Adopting the policy of zero-tolerance towards such illegal activities, the Uttar Pradesh Police busted a racket of fake Remdesivir injections in the state capital on Friday.
A total of 91 vials named as DESREM were recovered from the arrested men identified as Kaushal Shukla, Ajeet Maurya and Rakesh Tiwari, who were selling it for Rs 15,000- Rs 20,000 each.
“A team on the directions of the UP Government had been constituted to check the sale of fake injections as they have a serious impact on the health of the critical covid-19 patients. Taking advantage of the rising demand, some people have been selling fake vials at an even higher price,” informed Addl CP, Chiranjeev Nath Sinha.
The state government has instructed the police to take the strictest action against people who are black-marketing Covid-19 medicines by invoking the stringent provisions of NSA (National Security Act) and Gangster Act.
“The state government is fully committed to facilitate easy availability of vials and other Covid-related medicines to its people and the STF has been instructed to conduct a state-wide drive to check the hoarding of essential drugs,” said Awanish Kumar Awasthi adding that “various intelligence agencies have also been deployed to check the illegal sales by carrying out raids and regular monitoring.”
It is pertinent to note that the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had earlier issued strict instructions to the UP Police, State Health Department, State Medical Education Department and the State Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to monitor the availability, access the demand, maintain the smooth supply and check black marketing and hoarding of drugs essential for treatment of COVID-19 patients — and ensure that they are not being sold at high prices.