Hyderabad: Seven held for selling Covid-19 antiviral drugs at higher prices

Hyderabad: The West Zone task force on Saturday arrested seven persons for selling the antiviral drugs of Covid at higher rates and seized (09) Remdesivir (Covifor) of Hetero and (01) Cipremi injection of Cipla from their possession. The accused were identified as Md Aziz, B Raju, N Sunil, M Ravi, Md Afaq, Md Obaid and Md Majid Ali.

According to task force police, the accused persons were selling the Remdesivir injections to customers at higher rates and charging them exorbitantly.

P Radhakishan Rao, DCP of task force said, "In this case all the accused worked either in pharmacies or hospitals and they all colluded together to sell the medicines by black marketing them with the growing demand for it."

"The accused persons B Raju, N Sunil and M Ravi are working in various private hospitals in the city and they colluded with the other accused Md Aziz and Md Obaid for selling the drugs at higher rates. The accused Raju, Sunil and Ravi who worked as staff nurses at various hospitals formed a gang and sold the drugs mainly to Md Aziz who owned a pharmacy at Nanal Nagar," stated the officer.

He further added, "The actual price of injection is Rs 5,400 but, the accused Raju sold it to Aziz at Rs 19,000 and informed him that he was procuring it from Sunil at Rs 6,500 so he wanted to make a profit. Apart from it, the other accused Ravi also sold the same drug to Aziz at Rs 10,000. So the accused Aziz colluded with Obaid and sold the drugs with the help of their associates to the needy patients."

"It is clearly mentioned on the box of the injection that it is supposed to be meant for institutional/hospital sale only.But, the staff working in the hospitals are colluding with the pharmacists and are black marketing the drugs leading to the shortage of drugs in the hospitals. Severe actions are being initiated against such persons who are indulging in the heinous act," explained the officer.