Health Ministry failed to supply enough tocilizumab doses to Chandigarh

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 26

A pregnant woman was battling for life in the Covid ICU ward at the PGI, Chandigarh, on April 20 when doctors prescribed tocilizumab, a lifesaving drug in severe Covid-19, for her.

Fact file

Over 34,000 patients were found infected with Covid-19 during the second wave in Chandigarh and over 374 persons succumbed to the disease.

3 lakh hydroxychloroquine tablets

On the contrary, the Union Territory has been given 3 lakh tablets of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a drug repurposed for Covid-19 but wasn’t proven beneficial in the fight against the virus. The data about the supply of medicine and equipment from the Centre to states till July 21 was tabled in the Lok Sabha recently.

At a time when patients were failing to procure tocilizumab injection prescribed by doctors, the Union Health Ministry failed to supply adequate quantity of this drug to the Union Territory. According to the data presented by the Health Ministry in the Lok Sabha, Chandigarh has been given “only 155” doses of tocilizumab by the Centre till now.

On the contrary, the Union Territory has been given 3 lakh tablets of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a drug repurposed for Covid-19 but wasn’t proven beneficial in fight against coronavirus.

The data about the supply of medicine and equipment from the Centre to states till July 21 was tabled in the Lower House of Parliament recently.

Pertinently, over 34,000 patients were found infected with Covid-19 during the second wave in Chandigarh and over 374 succumbed to the disease.

As the drug was short in supply, PGI doctors had asked the family of a pregnant woman to procure it from outside.

“The situation of my sister was critical and the doctor had told us that tocilizumab was the only hope for her. She was nine-month pregnant and her life was in danger. I raised the request on the social media for the drug. After a day, a man approached me with the injection as it was spare with him. He had purchased the injection for his father, but it could not be used as he died,” said the woman’s brother.

This is not the only case where relatives of critically-ill Covid patients had to scramble for tocilizumab. In the second wave, doctors were caught in a fix as the drug was in short supply. Later when the drug fell short for about a month and Covid was raging in the region, the health authorities started looking for alternatives to tocilizumab.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently recommended life saving tocilizumab and sarilumab for critically-ill Covid patients.

According to the WHO, severely or critically ill Covid-19 patients often suffer from an overreaction of the immune system, which can be harmful to the patient’s health. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) blocking drugs – tocilizumab and sarilumab – act to suppress this overreaction and were in high demand during India’s devastating second wave of Covid-19 that claimed thousands of lives.

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