PROFITEERING IN THE PANDEMIC
On the night of April 26, Aseem Bhatia, a 53-year-old entrepreneur in New Delhi, anxiously awaited the Remdesivir injections required for his 41-year-old Covid-positive sister. Her oxygen saturation levels had dropped below 80 and the doctor had advised that Remdesivir be administered in the next few hours. Bhatia’s team, which had fanned out to drug stores across the city, returned past midnight at 2 am with two doses of the injection (three vials) purchased for Rs 80,000 from a ‘supplier’ they found standing outside a mall in Rohini. But, to his utter shock, Bhatia soon realised that the vials were fake, with even the drug’s name on them misspelt.
“We needed Remdesivir desperately that night. We had checked with every possible chemist and even visited offices of the drug controller—not a single official was available onsite,” recalls Bhatia, who also paid several times the MRP for several other Covid drugs. Bhatia’s sister was admitted to a hospital the next morning where she underwent plasma therapy. She is back home now after
