In two separate incidents, Bengaluru Police have arrested five persons for selling Remdesivir injections at eight to ten times more than the prescribed rates of the antiviral drug.
Bengaluru North division police arrested these five persons in two separate incidents. In the first case, four persons were arrested from the Mahalakshmi Layout police limits, while another person was arrested from the Sriramapura police station limits, the police said on Saturday.
The police identified the accused individuals as Shivakumar, 32, a bank manager in the cooperative sector; Darshan, 29, a medical representative; Girish, 30, a lab technician, and Nagesh, 43, a vegetable vendor.
The accused bank manager used the gullible vegetable vendor to sell these vials by making the buyers believe that he was in possession of them as one of his relatives had died of Covid-19 recently. He gave the impression to the buyers that the family was in possession of these medicines and all he wanted was to sell them at a price at which he had reportedly purchased them.
“The lab technician working in a hospital used to send customers to him,” the police said.
The fifth accused arrested from the Sriramapura police station limits has been identified as Nayaz Ahmed, 30, an employee with an online pharmaceutical delivery company.
The police said that all the accused persons were selling the drug for as high as ₹35,000 to ₹40,000 per vial.
In the Sriramapura case, the medicine delivery boy had purchased vials at MRP from a commissioning agent stating that he wanted the medicine to treat his brother.
In Karnataka, the price of Remdesivir ranges between ₹899 and ₹5,400 per vial. According to the available statistics, the retail price (MRP) per vial for various brands of Remdesivir is ₹5,400 for Hetero company, ₹4,700 for Mylan, ₹4,700 for Jubliant, ₹5,400 for Dr Reddy’s, ₹4,000 for Cipla and ₹899 for Zydus.
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