India has sufficient hydroxychloroquine for domestic needs, assures Government

NEW DELHI: Joint Secretary in the Union health ministry Lav Aggarwal said that India has enough hydroxychloroquine to meet domestic demands.

The explanation comes as India exported vast quantities of the drug touted to be quite useful in fighting coronavirus infections in patients.

Prime Minister Modi has reiterated that India will do everything possible to help humanity’s fight against coronavirus. He said this while replying to US President Donald Trump’s tweet where the latter thanked him for the gesture on the release of Hydroxychloroquine drug despite a ban on export. Trump had tweeted, “Thank you India and the Indian people for the decision on HCQ.”

Modi tweeted back saying, “We shall win this together.”

The government has decided to lift a partial ban on hydroxychloroquine after US President Donald Trump requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to export the drug to aid America’s fight against the deadly Covid-19 disease.

The Centre, sources said, will not ban but restrict the export of hydroxychloroquine and paracetamol depending on the availability of stock after meeting domestic requirements.

The Ministry of External Affairs and pharma industry will decide on such allocations depending on the humanitarian crisis, sources said.

President Trump had called Prime Minister Modi, requesting him to supply the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine that is being used to treat Covid-19 patients and as prophylactic by the frontline health care workers deployed in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. The Modi government had imposed a ban on export of the drug since the coronavirus outbreak hit India.

The US as of now has the highest number of the novel coronavirus cases in the world.

Hydroxychloroquine has been used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis apart from malaria for decades and several recent scientific studies had pointed out that it is also the most effective drug for novel coronavirus patients.

Just recently, Utpaljit Barman, 44, a senior anaesthetist at Guwahati-based Pratiksha Hospital died from heart attack after he took hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, approved by some authorities to have some impact against coronavirus.

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