Centre's allocation of drug irrational, says Bombay HC

Mumbai/ Aurangabad: The Bombay High Court on Thursday said the Union government's allocation of Amphotericin-B, a key drug used in the treatment of mucormycosis or black fungus, appeared to be irrational, and the supply to Maharashtra was not adequate considering the number of cases in the state.

Flagging the same issue during the hearing of a different Public Interest Litigation, another bench of the court said the Centre must take steps to increase the supply.

After the state government informed that 82 people died of mucormycosis in Maharashtra in the last three days, a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni at Mumbai asked Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni to find out if delay in the administration of necessary drugs led to these fatalities.

It also directed the Maharashtra government to maintain real-time record of mucormycosis cases and the available stock of drugs and convey this information to the Union government so as to procure the medicines in time.

Kumbhakoni told the court earlier that while the state had witnessed 512 deaths due to mucormycosis till June 7, the figure climbed to 600 by June 10. Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, the Union government's lawyer, said it had allocated an average of 4,060 vials of Amphotericin-B, a key drug used in the treatment of the fungal infection, per day to Maharashtra between May 11 and June 9.

The bench, however, noted that Maharashtra accounted for 25 percent of the total 23,254 cases in the country, and the drug allocation was inadequate and not proportional to the number of active cases in the state.

Daman and Diu had no active mucormycosis case but the Union Territory received 500 vials, Tripura had one case but did not receive any vial while Manipur and Nagaland with one active case each received 50 vials of

the medicine apiece, the court said, citing the Centre's own affidavit. "This allocation doesn't seem rational. Are the medicines really reaching where they are required? What is the distribution criteria?" the HC asked.

"The quantity (of Amphotericin-B) allocated to Maharashtra is very short. Allocation has to be dynamic and need-based pan-India. No patient should suffer for want of medicine," the court added.