Black fungus medicine to be made available locally in Ghaziabad and GB Nagar

Ghaziabad: Injections of Amphotericin B, the drug used to treat Mucormycosis or black fungus, will be made available locally in Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar within next one-two days, officials have said

Ghaziabad: Injections of Amphotericin B, the drug used to treat Mucormycosis or black fungus, will be made available locally in Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar within next one-two days, officials have said. Even so, the approval to obtain the drug for treatment will still vest with the divisional commissioner at Meerut.

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According to a government order issued May 19, state officials had directed that treatment of such patients will be taken up at government medical colleges and the drug, considering its limited availability, will be available at the divisional headquarters at Meerut, Varanasi, Agra and Lucknow. Both Ghaziabad and GB Nagar districts fall under the Meerut division.

As of now, kin of patients from both districts have to travel to Meerut to source the injections.

“Considering the fact that families have to travel daily to Meerut and back for the drug, the injections will be made available in the districts itself, while the approval will be provided online from Meerut. The arrangement is being brought about for the convenience of patients and their kin. We are not changing the approval conditions in the government order but only distribution,” said Surendra Singh, divisional commissioner (Meerut).

The division at Meerut is also catering to patients from the nearby Saharanpur division.

“The injections will be available in Ghaziabad and GB Nagar within a day or two and the stock will be released from the office of the respective chief medical officer (CMO). Earlier, a similar situation had prevailed when the Tocilizumab drug (used in Covid-19 treatment) was available only at Ghaziabad, Lucknow and Varanasi. Even though patients required it lesser quantities, as compared to Amphotericin B, their families still had to travel to these three cities to get the injections,” Singh said.

Patients from as many as 20 districts in the state are under treatment at the Meerut Medical College, he added, while 30-40 patients from Delhi.

He said that 94 of the 159 patients of black fungus (in the Meerut division) were taking up treatment at Meerut Medical College while Ghaziabad and GB Nagar each have 20 patients getting treatment in their respective districts.

“The families of patients being treated for black fungus suffer each day as they have to travel often to Meerut to get the injections, and many returned empty handed due to the short supply. I also went several times but did not get any injections. So, I travelled to other cities and went as far as up to Chandigarh to get it,” said Rakesh Kumar, brother of a patient from Ghaziabad.

“We also spent a lot of money on my brother’s treatment. We finally got him admitted to hospital in Delhi where he is due for a surgery and most importantly, he is also getting the injections. It will be a major relief if the drug is available locally,” Kumar added.

Officials of the health department at Meerut said that they only had 150 vials of Amphotericin B available on Wednesday.

“The stock is limited, and we are issuing doses in proportion to the districts. We had about 160 active cases of black fungus as of Wednesday, and these include 116 patients in Meerut and 20 each in Ghaziabad and GB Nagar, besides other districts. So far, there have been 41 casualties due to black fungus in the Meerut division,” said an officer from the health department at Meerut, who wished not to be identified.

Dr Deepak Ohri, chief medical officer of GB Nagar, said that the Amphotericin B being made available locally about a week ago.

“But this arrangement was for a short span. Families have to travel to Meerut to get injections from Meerut. Now, we have been told that we will get stock of 60 vials on Thursday, and we will send our vehicle to get the stock from Meerut,” he added.

Ghaziabad CMO Dr NK Gupta also said that similar number of vials will be made available to the district.

“We will send our vehicle to get the stock, which we will store at our vaccine store and distribute it proportionately to patients. The communication about local availability was received from Meerut on Wednesday evening,” he added.