Artificial scarcity of thalassemia drug feared, government urged to step in
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, SEPT 2016:
Life-saving drug Desefral, used by thalassemia patients, has been in short supply across the country for around a year, posing a potential risk to the lives of over one lakh patients, prompting several thalassemia societies and associations besides hematologists to write to health minister JP Nadda and many state governments for immediate intervention.
Patients, doctors, health activists and drug wholesalers told TOI the shortage of the drug became acute in the last one month but following campaign in the social media, some stocks were restored in Delhi and Bangalore in the past week.
A social media campaign put the spotlight on the shortage of the drug. An online petition by a Bangalore-based thalassemic patient on the website change.org, seeking the intervention of the health minister for availability of the critical drug, has mopped up a huge response of over 57,000 signatures till now.
States like Punjab, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh are still reeling under severe shortage, thalassemia associations said. "There is a severe shortage around the country and after we created noise on social media, some stocks have been made available in Delhi and Bangalore but patients in other states are still struggling for the medicine," said Muralidharan Vishwanath, secretary, National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled.
However, Swiss drug maker Novartis - the only company selling the drug in India at this point of time - maintained there has been no shortage of drug and presently it has sufficient stocks to meet the requirements. The Times of India