Demand drops, markets see glut of multivitamins in Kolkata

KOLKATA: As Covid cases have started to subside, demand for health supplements has fallen substantially.

Multivitamins

and

multimineral supplements

, which flew off shelves within days earlier during the pandemic, are now back to their much lower, pre-pandemic sale volumes, creating a glut in the city market.

The data of the

Indian Pharmaceutical Market

revealed demand for multivitamins and multimineral supplements in the country has come down by nearly 13% in April this year compared to the same period last year. The lower demand has now prompted pharmacies to stock a lower volume of these items.

“Recent sets of data point out that demand for multivitamins and multiminerals has fallen drastically. The IPM data available with us shows it is down by 13%. At the retail level, the demand could be lower,” said Sajal Ganguly, secretary of the Bengal Chemists and Druggists Association.

Arun Malas

of

Medicos Pharma

in Salt Lake felt the sales of multivitamins and multimineral supplements are one-fifth of what he had last year. “There is no doubt that fear has subsided. Even last year, we sold around 20-25 boxes of zinc supplements each month. Now we are hardly selling two-three boxes,” he said.

According to

Sanjay Kumar Mukim

, owner of Gautam & Gautam — a medicine wholesaler in the Mehta Building — sales of multivitamins are now at the pre-pandemic level. “People are buying these supplements after doctors prescribe them,” he said. Sales of other products related to precaution against the pandemic, like hand sanitiser, have also dropped drastically at the wholesale points.

City doctors think this is also a result of people’s awareness that indiscriminate use of vitamin or mineral supplements doesn’t yield results. Instead, they can even cause toxicity in some cases.

“The number of cases of upper respiratory tract infection from Covid is very low now and people are not that afraid. The medical fraternity was also able to convince a section of the population that these supplements don’t help improve metabolism in any way. Supplements don’t have any proven record of helping the body fight any infection. Vitamins should only be taken if a person has deficiency of the said vitamin,” said Pinaki Dey, consultant physician of ILS Dum Dum.