The Hyderabad Task Force and the Afzalgunj police today arrested two persons for illegally buying and then selling the Covid-19 antiviral drug, Remdesivir.
The two accused were identified as 35-year-old Kiran Kumar, who is a medical agency owner in Medipally, and 23-year-old Mohamad Khaled, who is a native of Chandrayangutta and is currently employed as a security guard at the Osmania General Hospital.
The police were able to recover five vials of Remdesivir from the duo.
Speaking on the matter, police officials stated, "After Kiran Kumar procured Remdesivir, at a cost of Rs 3,000, per dose from dealers, he then approached Khaled to help him find customers. To entice Khaled, he promised him a hefty commission from each sale. After buying the drug at Rs 3,000 per dose, the duo began to sell the same at Rs 30,000 to desperate patients."
The police, alerted through a tip-off, were able to arrest the two men and seize the Remdesivir vials in their possession. The Afzalgunj police will now process the accused.
The arrests come in the midst of a Remdesivir supply crunch in the state.
Last month too, an acute and potentially devastating shortage of the drug had left the people of Telangana panic-struck and desperate. Endless queues of anxious attendants of patients waiting outside pharmacies became a common sight. Some reports said that the injection was being sold in the black market at rates ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000.
The shortage of the drug had hit Hyderabad as well. This elicied a quick response from IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao who had promised that about
four lakh Remdesivir injections would be made available across all the government hospitals in the state by the end of April.