Haryana hospitals face acute shortage of drug to treat black fungus

ROHTAK: As cases of mucormycosis or black fungus rise across state, Post-graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), Rohtak and 11 other medical colleges in Haryana are facing acute shortage of Amphotericin-b, the drug used to treat the infection.

While some private hospitals, where black fungus patients are undergoing treatment, are expressing difficulty in procuring the drugs, family members of patients say they are running from pillar to post looking for the drug.

Rakesh Sihag, of Hisar, said one of his relatives has contracted the infection and is undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Rohtak.

“The expert committee formed by director general health services had approved seven vials of Amphotericin-b for him on May 18, but he is yet to get the drug. We are trying to procure the drug but to no avail. Hospital authorities said they don’t have the drug and are waiting to get it from the government. The drug is not available anywhere in the market,” he added.

Rakesh Beniwal, of Sirsa said doctors asked them to bring 10 vials of the drug for treatment of his father-in-law.

“Doctors said we need six injections per day and the treatment lasts four to six weeks. They expressed inability to provide even a single vial of the medicine. How do we procure it if neither the government nor the markets have it?” he said.

Slamming the BJP-JJP government, INLD general secretary Abhay Chautala and Congress’s Tosham MLA Kiran Choudhry said the government had notified black fungus as a disease but it does not have the

injections required to treat the patients.

“The government has notified 12 medical colleges to treat black fungus patients and all of them are facing acute shortage of the drug. If hospitals don’t have the medicine, how will they treat the patients? Why has the state government not floated tenders to get Amphotericin-b earlier,” Choudhry said.

State nodal officer for Covid-19, Dr Dhruva Chaudhary said there is acute shortage of the injections across country.

“The Centre had allocated only 100 vials of the drug to Haryana and PGIMS had received 200 vials. On an average, a patient needs seven injections of the drug a day and the treatment continues for at least 30 days. So, one can easily imagine the shortage. The state had written to the Centre to allocate more vials of the drug,” he added.

PGIMS medical superintendent Dr Pushpa Dahiya said 63 patients of black fungus are admitted at the institution and they don’t have enough drug

vials to treat them.

“We have written to the state seeking 6,000 vials to treat the patients and are yet to receive them. Our institute was allocated four districts but cases are coming in from across state,” she added.

Meanwhile, as the total number of black fungus cases in Gurugram touched 156 on Saturday, senior district officials and union minister Rao Inderjit Singh expressed concerns regarding shortage of amphotericin. “The Central government has been asked to increase the allocation of amphotericin drug for Haryana, considering that many Covid-19 patients from Delhi-ncr region have been undergoing treatment at Gurugram hospitals,” said Rao Inderjit Singh, minister of state (independent charge) for statistics, programme implementation and planning.

On May 15, state health minister Anil Vij had declared black fungus as a notified disease to gauge the prevalence of infection and streamline the distribution of amphotericin drug.