Nagpur district with active COVID-19 caseload of over 78,000 received ‘zero’ vials of Remdesivir injections on Wednesday while Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope’s home-district Jalna got 30,000 vials for 7,800 active cases. When this shocking anomaly was placed before the High Court on Thursday, it directed the Nodal Officer to place on record district-wise allocation of Remdesivir and formula adopted to determine entitlement of each district. “In case he finds that more number of vials than what should have been sent to a particular district have been sent, the Nodal Officer shall withdraw the same from that district proportionately and send them to the districts that have been unjustly and unequally deprived of these vials, and this would include Nagpur as well,” the High Court directed while seeking compliance by Friday afternoon.

 

A division bench consisting of Justice Sunil Shukre and Justice Avinash Gharote, while hearing a suo-motu PIL on COVID-19 mismanagement, asked the Nodal Officer -- FDA’s Joint Commissioner Ganesh Rokde -- to place on record corrective action and effective steps taken to remove this shocking step-motherly treatment. The Centre had allotted 2.69 lakh Remdesivir vials for Maharashtra for April 21-30 and the quota was enhanced to 4.35 lakh on April 24. Considering active cases, Nagpur district should have received 49,177 vials during nine days, but got only a fraction of it, pointed out Shreerang Bhandarkar, Amicus Curiae, and Adv Bhanudas Kulkarni, IMA Counsel. If number of active cases in Nagpur district is taken into account, the district should have received 6,539 vials per day within the limitation of 4.35 lakh vials for a period of 10 days from April 21 till April 30. As against this, Jalna district received 30,000 vials of Remdesivir from one or two pharmaceutical companies, informed the Amicus Curiae and the IMA Counsel.

 

According to their calculations, based upon the number of active patients, the per day quota of these vials for Jalna district is of 598 vials, which would make the total entitlement of Jalna district for a period of 10 days to 5,980 vials. As against this, Jalna district has received 30,000 vials yesterday (Wednesday), they claimed. The official record shows that active cases in Jalna district, as of April 20, were 7,603 and the active cases in Nagpur district as of April 20 were 78,484. On a couple of days, including April 28 (Wednesday), Nagpur district received no vials making the situation quite precarious, informed Adv Tushar Mandlekar. When the State, through in-charge GP Ketaki Joshi, sought some time to furnish the detailed affidavit pursuant to last order, the High Court specifically sought to know whether any district-wise allotment order was passed by Nodal Officer to ensure fair and equitable distribution of Remdesivir among districts depending on number of active cases and availability of Remdesivir.

 

The Nodal officer has not passed any such order and there is no need also, informed the State while promising to justify this position on Friday. The State blamed the Centre and pharmaceutical companies for the short supply. Taken aback by this stance, the High Court then asked the State and its Nodal Officer the basis of distribution of Remdesivir among districts, backlog of vials from pharmaceutical companies and steps taken pursuant to allotment of quota by Central Committee to procure the quantity from seven pharmaceutical companies by Friday. Reiterating its earlier order of finalising district-wise allotment in just and equitable manner while applying the formula adopted by Centre in finalising entitlement of each State, the High Court observed that it would make task of Nodal Officer, pharmaceutical companies and District Collectors much easy to procure and distribute Remdesivir. In case pharmaceutical companies are deliberately under-supplying Remdesivir to State or particular districts, it would become easy to issue some directions to them, the High Court stated.