'Doubling production not enough, consider import'
New Delhi: With black fungus (mucormycosis) cases on the rise in the Capital amid a shortage of Amphotericin-B — a drug used to treat the fungal infection on Thursday triggered the Delhi High Court to seek a detailed report on the production capacity of the drug after detailed arguments on the Centre's allocation to Delhi in the last few days.
Mucormycosis is a rare fungal infection affecting largely recovered Covid patients in significant numbers this year. Almost 200 cases have been reported across Delhi hospitals and even hospitals like AIIMS have said they are getting as many as 20 cases every day.
A division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh on Thursday directed the Centre to file a status report within three days with details of the present production capacity of the drug, the producers licenced to manufacture it, their production capacity, their enhanced production capacity, and when the increased capacity will materialise by.
In addition to this, the court ordered that the Central government may also submit information regarding the steps taken to import the medicine for use throughout the country. The court directed that this status report be filed in three days after it expressed dissatisfaction with the Centre's replies during the hearing.
After hearing on the irregular allocation of the drug to Delhi due to shortage of the drug, when the Centre said that Bharat Biotech is increasing production capacity, the court said, "Looking to the requirement, we're afraid that doubling of production will not suffice. We're of the view that the Central government should seriously consider immediate import from wherever the medicine is available in the world."
This came after Senior advocate Rahul Mehra, for the Delhi government submitted to the court that there are five companies including Cipla and Bharat Biotech that produce the drug but the Centre was yet to disclose the names of all producers of the medicine. He sought that the Centre be directed to disclose this list and also put on record how it is augmenting production.
The allocation of the drug to Delhi has been irregular according to statements made by Advocate Singh. He said that Delhi had received 2,150 vials of the drug on May 11 and 600 vials on May 19. He said the allocation to Delhi is around 3 per cent of the national stocks. He went on to say that as of Thursday, the country was producing 15,960 vials per day, of which 430 was being allocated to Delhi.
During the hearing, Justice Sanghi orally remarked, "What happens is that you say that requirement of Delhi is 4,000. So if you don't have for all, then maybe you need to identify who you need to give it to. There should be guidelines. Either you have to ration it but there has to be some practical way to deal with it," according to legal news website Live Law.
