Chemists told to stock up on key medicines

The government has reached out to the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), asking it to ensure the availability of critical drugs for the management of Covid-19 and other essential medicines to meet challenges in times to come.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority and the Drug Controller General of India held a meeting with AIOCD on Monday regarding the availability of medicines in the current situation.

The government is concerned that the cases of Omicron and Delta variants may increase, so there should not be any shortages of medicines in the country, the AIOCD said in a letter to its district associations on Wednesday.


The government has said there should not be any shortage of products including all types of cough syrups, paracetamol tablets, Vitamin C, zinc tablets, azithromycin and ivermectin. It has specifically asked chemists to maintain buffer stock of these medicines.

"Please ask all the members of your district to keep sufficient stock to meet out the challenges in times to come," the association's letter said. The AIOCD has also asked state authorities to ensure that there is no hoarding of medicines. India has been seeing a rapid rise in Covid-19 cases.

Public health experts have been anticipating that the third wave of Covid-19 could peak in January end-February.

Last time, as Covid-19 cases in India surged, so did the demand for remdesivir and with it came hoarding, and black marketers causing artificial shortage to jack up prices.

In April last year, several states reported a shortage of the antiviral following a rise in its demand amid the second wave of Covid-19.

"The government officials in their meeting wanted to ensure that there should not be any shortage of the drugs as India starts to see an upsurge again in Covid-19 cases," said a member of the chemists' association.