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Telangana, which has been facing a severe shortage of Remdesivir injections, has alleged discrimination in the allocations by the Union Government.
Telangana Health Minister Eatala Rajender has said the Union Government had issued an Order on Wednesday, taking control over Remdesivir output from the pharma companies.
“We used to buy them from the companies earlier. And, we have placed an order for four lakh vials, keeping in view the huge demand for the injection,” he said.
He said that the Union Government had taken control over the Remdesivir output in order to streamline distribution to different States.
“But we were allocated only 21,551 doses for the 10-day period April 21 to30. While Gujarat was allocated 1.63 lakh vials, Madhya Pradesh 92,000, Maharashtra two lakhs, Telangana was allocated very less,” he said.
“What is the basis for the allocation? They can’t allocate the injections based on the number of cases registered in the State,” he said.
“About 60-70 per cent of the patients in our hospitals belong to the neighbouring States of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. They should factor in these numbers while deciding on the allocations,” he said.
With the State facing shortage of Remdesivir supplies, Telangana IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao held discussions on Wednesday and convinced them to sell four lakh vials in a week.
Now that the Union Government issued an Order taking control over the supplies, the State had to wait for the allocations made for it.
Oxygen supplies
The Health Minister also found fault with the Centre’s allocations of oxygen supplies for Telangana. “They have alloted oxygen from a place in Orissa which is 1,300 km away from here. We request the Union Government to allocate oxygen from centres in the neighbouring States of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka,” he said.
New positive cases
Meanwhile, the State reported 5,567 new Covid-19 positive cases and 23 deaths due to the viral infection on Wednesday. It tested 1.02 lakh samples.
The State, which has 46,488 active cases, awaits reports of 4,700 tests.
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