The Jharkhand government has sought permission from the Centre to procure 50,000 vials of remdesivir injections from Bangladesh citing an acute crisis of the anti-viral drug in the state amid an alarming rise in Covid-19 cases and the alleged failure of the Narendra Modi-led Centre in providing sufficient doses of the drug to Jharkhand.

In a letter addressed to the Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers DV Sadananda Gowda on Sunday, Chief Minister Hemant Soren stated that the state received only 8,038 vials of Remdesivir injection from the Centre against its demand of 76,640 vials, leading to a shortage of the injection in the state and unavailability of the drug for symptomatic and needy patients of Covid-19.

“Since we could not get the remdesivir as per our requirement from Indian manufacturers, we started exploring the international market for procuring Remdesivir. We have been able to get a quotation from BEXIMCO Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Bangladesh for 50,000 vials of Demsivir IV injection at a total cost of 1 million dollars, which the government of Jharkhand is willing to procure at the earliest in light of the pressing needs of this medicine,” the letter stated.

Last week, the state had received around 1500 vials of the drug from the Centre after Health Minister Banna Gupta spoke to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan via video conferencing and apprising him about the acute shortage of the injection in Jharkhand. However, the available stock ran out quickly due to the unprecedented increase in the number of symptomatic patients needing hospitalization.

The Covid situation in the state continued to worsen on Sunday as Jharkhand reported at least 3,992 fresh cases and 50 Covid fatalities in 24 hours, revealed data compiled by the National Health Mission (NHM). The state reported only 1551 Covid recoveries on the day, leading to a jump in the active caseload from around 25,000 to 28010 in 24 hours.

Ranchi alone reported 1073 cases of infection and 11 deaths on the day, while 676 people were found infected in East Singhbhum and 17 patients died there on Sunday. The Covid toll in the state jumped to 1456 on the day.

The growth rate of infection also reached 2.01 per cent in Jharkhand against the national average of 1.11 per cent. As per government data, the doubling rate of infection in the tribal state was 34.81 days against the national average of 62.85 days.

The government on Sunday tested swab samples of 41,900 people and close to 10 per cent of them were found infected. So far, over 1.62 lakh people have been infected by the lethal virus in Jharkhand and around 81.91 per cent of them have recovered.