Hyderabad: Panic purchases cause drugs shortage in city

Hyderabad: Due to countrywide lockdown to combat Coronavirus, shortage of medicines has become acute and a major cause of concern to patients, especially those with chronic ailments. The main reason is said to be non-availability of transport to ferry medicines and replenish stocks at pharmacies.

"For the past one week, I have been visiting several medical shops to find soluble insulin ingestion and have to return empty-handed each time, as whichever medical shop I visited said that they were running short of insulin. I also tried procuring it online but it is not available," rued Janardhan, a resident of Trimulgherry. "For the past three days, I have been wandering from one medical shop to another medical shop near my locality for multivitamin syrup but I could not find and the shopkeeper said to visits the shop after three days and even after three days I did not find the syrup," said Santosh, a resident of Jeedimetla village.

"Due to the lockdown, we are not getting enough stock of medicines which we use to get before lockdown. Also, people out of fear are stocking up medicines, more than what they require.

Another reason is that distributors are not able to supply us medicines on time due to the lockdown, as it is taking almost 2 to 3 days to get the supplies of medicines," deplored a salesperson form Aditya pharmacy, Kompally.

Ramesh Gupta, the president of Telangana State Chemist and Druggist Association, said, "Maybe in a particular pharmacy, there would be a shortage, but it is no so at every medical shop. There is no such shortage of medicines in Telangana.

People are making panic purchases of medicines and many are procuring it even without showing prescription. With the help of police officials, we are trying to ensure that medicines reach each nook and corner of city."