Ninety per cent of the Covid-19 patients who were administered fake Remdesivir injections supplied by a Gujarat-based gang have survived their lung infections, investigation by Madhya Pradesh police reveals. While Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wants murder case to be registered against the racketeers arrested in Indore and Jabalpur, holding them accountable for each death, senior police officials are trying to find ways to link mortalities with the duplicate injections without the dead bodies. None of these victims was buried, they say.
During investigation, police officers were surprised to compare the survival rates of patients who had taken the fake injections with those who had got the real ones. Ten patients in Indore, who were injected fake Remdesivir brought from a Gujarat-based gang, died while more than 100 survived the Covid-19 infection despite being given glucose-salt water. Since their bodies have been cremated, investigating the side effects of the fake drugs is impossible.
The Centre has told states that Remdesivir may decrease hospitalization time when used in moderate to severe cases, but there is no proven benefit in terms of reduced mortality.
The surge in Covid infections, however, has triggered an all-out clamour for Remdesivir. Even quacks and non-medicos in parts of Madhya Pradesh began ‘prescribing’ it, triggering a mad rush for the injection, and shortage.
The Gujarat-based gang cashed in on this, police said. The racket was busted in Gujarat on May 1. During interrogation by the Gujarat crime branch, the accused revealed that they had sold around 1,200 fake injections in MP — 700 in Indore and 500 in Jabalpur. Jabalpur police have not been able to make any significant headway in the case. They have not been able to trace the patients to whom the fake injections were given since the hospital did not maintain records.
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