Patna, March 6: Several government medical colleges and health hubs in the districts are facing an acute shortage of kala-azar drugs despite the state’s claims to have shifted its focus on elimination of the disease after rooting out polio last year.

Sources said about 3.5 lakh vials of sodium anti-gluconate, a drug used to treat kala-azar, have expired in the last three months.

The sources added that the drugs would have meant 17.1 lakh doses to “critical patients”.

“The medicines were worth Rs 3.5 crore. Twenty-five thousand more vials would expire by March 31. This comes at a time when National Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme has made it clear that no more drugs would be supplied in the next four months,” a source in the health department told The Telegraph.

“Critical (kala-azar) patients are not getting medicines at medical colleges and district-level hospitals because of the shortage,” the source said.

The state headquarters does not have stock of kala-azar medicines such as Miltofocine and Amphotericine B that are given to patients in the out-patient department, the source added.

Health secretary Sanjay Kumar admitted that the medicine supply chain had been affected, but he put the onus for this on the Centre.

“Supplies have been affected, particularly during the past six weeks. Some drugs that were of short-expiry nature have expired. This has only aggravated the situation. We will take up the issue with the Centre. As an emergency arrangement, we have asked the civil surgeons to procure drugs from local markets by using funds that are available for purchasing drugs,” Kumar said.

Bihar has suffered a lot because of kala-azar, a disease transmitted by sand fly. Last year, the disease infected at least 15,000 people and claimed about 50 lives.

According to health offi-cials, nearly 15,000 cases were reported in various hospitals in 31 of the 38 affected districts and over 50 people succumbed to the disease in 2011.

The previous year, over 20,000 people were affected by kala-azar and the death toll was 87. The state government had launched a massive anti-kala-azar campaign in 2010 to contain the spread of sand fly vectors in 16 districts that suffered the most.

It had also constituted a task force headed by former central health minister and veteran BJP leader C.P. Thakur to work towards the eradication of the disease.