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They sold saline in Remdesivir vials to 900 desperate Covid patients; arrested
The Mysuru police stumbled upon the racket when it started investigating possible instances of people selling Remdesivir on the black market.
A group of five people who had been selling saline solution mixed with paracetamol in vials of anti-viral drug Remdesivir to Covid-19 patients have been arrested, the Mysuru police chief Dr Chandragupta said on Tuesday. Dr Chandragupta said the police had also started a massive exercise to trace at least 900 patients who bought fake doses over the last six months or so.
The Mysuru police stumbled upon the racket when it started investigating possible instances of people selling Remdesivir on the black market. There have been multiple reports of shortage of Remdesivir vials in Karnataka due to the surge in coronavirus cases. According to medical practitioners, the drug which costs between ₹1,000 to ₹5,000 was being sold for upto ₹40,000 by unscrupulous people.
One of the leads that the investigators received led them to a nurse working in a private hospital in Mysuru’s Vidhya Nagar locality, identified by the police as Girish.
“We arrested him after sending a decoy (customer) to purchase the vials,” the Mysuru police commissioner Dr Chandragupta said. Girish had sold the vial to the decoy customer at the maximum retail price though he sold the medicine on the black market.
Dr Chandragupta said when they tried to ascertain the source of his supply, he was evasive. “When we continued to question him about his supply, he claimed that he was selling fake medicine,” he said.
Many vials labelled as Remdesivir, but filled with a mix of paracetamol and saline solution have been seized during the raids that followed.
According to the national treatment protocol, Remdesivir is one of the investigational drugs approved for use in treating hospitalized Covid-19 patients. The drug has been in huge demand after the surge in Covid-19 cases; most chemists have run out of stocks due to its indiscriminate use by patients even though several experts contend that it is largely ineffective in the treatment of the viral disease.
According to the Mysuru police, Girish, who had been selling fake doses of Remdesivir for months, procured used bottles of the medicine from a couple and filled it with saline solution. The couple who supplied the used vials and two medical representatives who helped Girish sell the fake does have also been arrested.
Police said Girish has sold at least 900-1,000 vials to customers in Mysuru, Bengaluru and other places. Chandragupta said they were trying to trace the people who bought the fake doses. “We are collecting information from the accused and we will track down the patients who have taken medicines. Since he has been doing this since 2020 and he was selling the fake medicine at MRP (maximum retail price), there were a lot of customers,” the commissioner added.
