Thousands turn to black market for drugs and oxygen
DESPERATE Indians are turning to the black market to get hold of vital medicines and oxygen supplies as the country’s healthcare system buckles under its deadly second wave of Covid.
Cases hit 375,000 yesterday – the seventh time in eight days the global record was broken – while daily deaths have soared to a new high of 3,645.
Overwhelmed crematoriums are using car parks and pavements to build makeshift funeral pyres, which burn day and night, while hospitals in cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai are so overcrowded patients are dying outside as they wait for a bed.
Black marketeers are cashing in on the shortages of medicine and oxygen for ventilators. In the north-western city of Ahmedabad, 13 people were arrested for trying to sell the antiviral drug remdesivir.
Doses are being sold for more than £1,000 each, 30 times the market value and three times the average monthly salary for a white-collar worker.
Elsewhere, families claim they are being told by hospitals to
seek drugs on the black market to keep their relatives alive.
Families in their thousands are turning to social media to post messages begging to buy oxygen. In the northern city of Lucknow, one man was charged £430 for a ten-gallon oxygen cylinder, nine times its normal price.
The second wave has now spread to more rural areas, where medics say people unable to get treatment are turning to witch doctors. Dr Ashita
Singh, of Chinchpada Christian Hospital in a remote part of Maharashtra state, said patients are arriving with branding marks to drive out ‘spirits’ they believe cause the infection.
Others rely on herbal cures while some have fled their villages out of fear of demons which they believe are spreading the disease, which is helping the infection to spread.
Indian industrial firms such as Tata Group are helping supply medical oxygen, while the UK is sending vital medical equipment including ventilators.
But despite the crisis, there has still been no order for a national lockdown from prime minister Narendra Modi – who just weeks ago declared ‘victory’ over the virus – and elections, weddings and sports events are still ongoing.
Meanwhile, UK cases of the Indian variant have doubled, with scientists confirming 400 cases of B1617, up from 182 a week ago.