A crisis of drugs that are needed to treat Covid patients is being felt across hospitals in Calcutta and doctors said the problem, if not resolved soon, could hit patient management.
Shortage of remdesivir, a drug widely used to treat patients with severe symptoms, is worrying hospitals the most. Some other drugs like tocilizumab and doxycycline, too, are in short supply.
Some doctors said Covid has multiple lines of treatment but remdesivir, tocilizumab and doxycycline are widely used to treat the disease.
“We have 20 patients in our hospital now who are requiring remdesivir. Each patient has to be administered six doses of remdesivir, which means we will need 120 doses. But we have only 35 doses,” said Sudipta Mitra, a doctor who is treating Covid patients at Peerless Hospital.
“If the number of patients who need remdesivir sees a sharp spike in a couple of days, how will we manage? In such a situation, we may have to even stop administering the drug before the six-dose course is completed,” said Mitra, also the chief executive of Peerless Hospital. The hospital, he said, is also facing a shortage of tocilizumab and doxycycline.
Alok Roy, a doctor and chairman of Medica Superspecialty Hospital, echoed Mitra.
“Remdesivir is a crucial drug for treatment of Covid but there are issues about its supply. There is also a shortage of tocilizumab. We have communicated it to the state health department and they have promised that there will not be any problem in getting medicines required for treating Covid patients,” Roy said.
“We are increasing the number of Covid beds but if the supply of essential medicines is hit, it will become difficult to treat patients,” said a senior official of a private hospital.
A doctor who has been treating Covid-19 patients since the beginning of the pandemic said tocilizumab was mentioned in the treatment protocol issued by the state health department. “The drug reduces inflammation. It is administered to patients with high levels of inflammation, which can disrupt the functioning of organs,” said Sanjib Bandyopadhyay, a doctor at the Beleghata ID Hospital.
“Doxycycline has anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and possibly antiviral effects, and so is considered as a potential treatment for Covid-19.”
At an online meeting with the state health department on Thursday, private hospitals raised the issue of non-availability of remdesivir. Officials of several pharmaceutical companies attended the meeting.
An official of a private hospital said representatives of drug companies said the supply of remdesivir could improve from next week.
Ajay Chakraborty, the state’s director of health services, said: “I am not aware of the shortage of doxycycline. Also, there are antibiotics that can be used in place of doxycycline. Tocilizumab is a drug that is very rarely used.”
Hospitals also said there had been a sharp rise in the price of pulse oximeters, used to measure blood oxygen saturation. A pulse oximeter cost about Rs 1,500 last year. The price has since doubled, said an official of a hospital.
Case count
The number of active Covid cases in Bengal rose by 4,360, to 36,981, on Thursday. The state recorded 6,769 new infections and 2,387 recoveries during the day.
