19 patients wait for drug, Noida gets only 6 vials

Noida: The district on Thursday received its first batch of six vials of liposomal amphotericin B, the antifungal drug used to treat mucormycosis or black fungus. The vials have been sent to the Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) in Greater Noida, where two patients are being treated for the infection.
As of now, there are 19 patients admitted to various hospitals in Noida for mucormycosis.All of them have placed requests for the antifungal drug. “The first batch of the drug has arrived. More doses are likely to reach the city over the next few days,” said Deepak Ohri, the chief medical officer. On May 18, KK Gupta, the director-general of the medical education department, had issued an order regarding the allotment of vials to districts where cases of black fungus have been reported.
In total, the UP government has received 980 vials of amphotericin B. Of these, 636 vials of the 50mg drug were dispatched to 12 districts on Thursday. Lucknow, which has the highest caseload, got the majority of the vials (384) while Meerut was assigned 66 vials. Apart from Noida, the other districts that got the injection were Bareli, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Kanpur, Jhansi, Aligarh, Agra, Ambedkar Nagar and Jalaun.
Increasing cases of black fungus are a cause for concern in Lucknow, where three government institutes and two private hospitals have dedicated wards. It is estimated that over 130 patients are seeking treatment in the state capital for the fungus.
Meanwhile, the six vials that were given to GIMS would be exhausted soon. “The vials would be used to treat patients here. We cannot offer it to others unless we have excess stock,” said Rakesh Gupta, director of the Greater Noida-based medical institute.
Officials said they had placed a demand for the injection more than a week ago. “At that time, there were no cases here in Noida. But in Delhi, mucormycosis was slowly shaping up as a threat. We alerted senior officials to arrange for the medicine as supplies were drying up,” said an official.
An official of the food safety and drug administration department in Lucknow admitted that the shortage of the drug would continue over the next few days unless manufacturers scaled up production. He added that the remaining vials allotted for the state would also be distributed among the districts soon. “Before dispatching any medicine, we have to enter the details in the drugs and vaccine distribution management system. Purchase order, invoice details and indents have to be scanned and uploaded on the system. Apart from amphotericin B, we have orders pending for a number of other crucial drugs,” the official added..