The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday urged the Union government to allocate an adequate amount of Amphotericin B, a drug used for treating black fungus, as the state detected 673 cases so far and the demand for the medication has 'increased manifold’. In a letter to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Chief Minister MK Stalin said, “[…] the emergence of mucormycosis among the patients and sufficient supply of liposomal Amphotericin B, which is being allotted by the Government of India, are increasingly becoming critical issues which need urgent intervention.”
Noting that his government already placed orders for 35,000 vials of the antifungal drug, he said that the supply was according to the allocation made by the Union government, which was inadequate “[…] the state has received only 1,790 vials, which is woefully inadequate to treat the growing numbers of mucormycosis patients. I would request you to kindly instruct the concerned officials to immediately allocate at least 30,000 vials to Tamil Nadu," the CM added.
Notably, the dosage of liposomal Amphotericin B per patient is 5 vials per day and with the current caseload, the allocation per day should at least be 3,365 vials. This number is double the current allocation by the Union government to the state. With the state government declaring mucormycosis as a notified disease, Stalin said Tamil Nadu has initiated large scale prevention efforts by creating greater awareness about its likely causes. The state government has also set up mucormycosis clinics and dedicated wards in government hospitals.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu reported 24,405 fresh COVID-19 cases pushing the total active caseload in the state to 2,80,426. Among the districts, Coimbatore recorded the maximum number of cases on Thursday adding 2,980, followed by Chennai with 2,062, Erode with 1,671, Salem with 1,253, Thanjavur with 1,020 and Tiruppur with 1,264. Recoveries remained high with 32,221 people walking out of health care institutions on Thursday while 460 persons succumbed to the disease.
(With inputs from PTI)