The All-India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), an apex body representing 9.4 lakh chemists in the country, has urged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to intervene in the matter of online portal for Covid-19 drugs, stating that the entire process is quite cumbersome when it comes to furnishing patient-related and other supply chain information.

Main objective

The main objective of having such a portal is to ensure timely delivery of Remdesivir and this cannot be achieved if the procedures in the portal are cumbersome, Rajiv Singhal, General Secretary, AIOCD, told BusinessLine . There are so many hurdles on the portal and it takes an entire dayto furnish all the requirements on the portal, he noted.

The portal should be so devised that it should only cater to the information needs of users, and distribution to hospitals and institutions should be done with the help of a drug department of the Delhi government. Instead of asking patient-wise uploading of information, the data for the day can be uploaded on the portal, said Singhal. “What is the point in having thousands of injections at the level of distributors and not being able to deliver them because of this portal business. Today, if there are 170,000 wholesalers, only 16,000 are getting Remdesivir. The balance goes directly to the big hospitals. The scope of black marketing by wholesalers is absolutely limited. Private and retailers are anyway not getting anything from us. So, where is the scope of black marketing. This portal filing business should be between the hospital and patient. Why bring wholesalers, stockists etc into this?”, asked Singhal.

Live information

It may be recalled that Delhi High Court had, a week back, directed the Delhi government to set up an online portal that would disclose live information on the supply chain of essential Covid-19 drugs.

“The position should be updated on a real-time basis so that the aspect of availability is known to all and transparency is maintained. This will, to a great extent, curb black marketing of essential drugs required for treatment of Covid-19,” said an order by a division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli.

The Delhi High Court had also directed the Delhi government to call for records on supplies of Remdesivir from all pharmacies in hospitals. The Delhi government was also asked to collection information on the supply details of other essential drugs such as Tocilizumab and Doxycycline and the sales that had been effected. The Delhi government was asked to random audits of pharmacies so as to check stocks and catch black marketeers.

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