Pune hospitals grapple with shortage of tocilizumab

PUNE: Hospitals treating severely ill Covid-19 patients are facing a shortage of tocilizumab — an anti-rheumatic drug found effective in counteracting the cytokine storm — an abnormal immune response.


Shyam Pratapwar, assistant commissioner (drugs),

Food and Drug Administration

(

FDA

), Pune, said, “There has been a shortage of tocilizumab for a week now. Unlike remdesivir, tocilizumab is still distributed to treating hospitals only against requirements through the district collectorate because it is an imported drug and its supply has always been erratic. We are doing our best to replenish the stock in Pune.”

Patients getting referred to hospitals in Pune in sizable numbers from other places has led to the tocilizumab crunch. At present, over 90% of the admitted Covid-19 patients in the city are referred from rural parts of Pune and neighbouring districts.

Noble Hospital

’s infectious diseases expert Ameet Dravid said, “We are getting quite a few seriously ill Covid patients from adjoining districts like

Ahmednagar

and

Solapur

. Besides, young severely ill Covid patients are also being referred to us from hospitals in Baramati and other talukas in rural parts of Pune. Most of these serious patients need tocilizumab but there is a shortage.”

Doctors are using other drugs in view of the shortage of tocilizumab. “There are certain anti-cancer, anti-ulcerative colitis and immunosuppressant drugs that we can use but studies have not proven them very useful in Covid.”

“Tocilizumab supply has always been erratic. We have been using the drug subcutaneously in select patients,” said Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital’s infectious disease expert Parikshit Prayag.

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