Maharashtra to procure 10,000 vials of Remdesivir as COVID-19 cases reach 82,968

MUMBAI: The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra will purchase 10,000 vials of the drug Remdesivir for treating coronavirus patients. The announcement was made by state’s Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope said on Saturday.

"GoM to procure 10k vials of Remdesivir. Based on evidence from Laboratory, animal and clinical studies, it has generated promising results in MERS-CoV and SARS which are also caused by Corona Virus," Tope said in a tweet.

In another tweet, Tope informed that the expensive medicine will be made available to the poor and needy patients across the state.

"WHO (World Health Organization) suggests it may have some positive effects in Covid-19 treatment. This expensive medicine is being made available for poor and needy patients," he added.

Meanwhile, the state government has also constituted a 4-member committee to fix rates for coronavirus testing in private laboratories in Maharashtra. The committee will decide the fees of the COVID-19 test in private laboratory in 7 days.

The state government has constituted a Fee Determination Committee under the chairmanship of Dr Sudhakar Shinde, Chief Executive Officer of the State Health Guarantee Service Society, to make full use and maximum testing of laboratories in the state.

Ajay Chandanwale, Joint Director, Department of Medical Education and Research, Grant Government Medical College and Hospital Amita Joshi will serve as the member while director of Health Services will serve as Member Secretary.

In view of the increasing prevalence of coronavirus in the state, ICMR has approved corona testing in 44 government and 36 private laboratories with RT-PCR testing facilities. These tests are being done free of cost in government laboratories.

The ICMR had fixed a rate of Rs 4,500 for private laboratories. During this time, the kits required for inspection tests had to be imported. But now such kits are being made and available in the country. Therefore, ICMR has decided to fix the corona test rate by negotiating with accredited laboratories.

The announcement came on a day when Maharashtra reported a spike of 2,739 COVID-19 cases taking the total number of cases to 82,968. Death toll due to the COVID-19 infection also went up by 120 to 2,969, the state’s Health department said.

Maharashtra had on Friday reported 80,229 coronavirus cases and 2,849 deaths, which were the highest in the country.