With increasing swine flu cases leading to over 600 reported cases and over 90 reported deaths across the state, the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has instructed all the Schedule X authorised chemists to ensure that antiviral medicine oseltamivir be made available to the patients after taking into account its rational usage for the sake of patient safety.

The state FDA has directed all the 1191 existing licenced retail outlets authorised to dispense the oseltamivir generic to the needy patients strictly against the prescription of the doctor.  The physicians have also been requested to write generic name only. The generic medicine oseltamivir, available for swine flu currently manufactured and marketed by a few companies, is a Schedule X drug. The retail outlets where the Schedule X drug is available include 340 drug retail stores in Mumbai, 269 in Thane, 202 in Pune and 85 in Nagpur.

The list of medical stores is displayed on fda.maharashtra.gov.in and can also be accessed on xlnindia.gov.in.

The state FDA has also set up a helpline number 1800222365 for the ailing patients to enquire and know about the availability of drugs. According to official sources, a total of 50,000 additional medicines are available with the state health department and availability of stocks is not an issue. Tamiflu has been recommended by the Health Ministry for patients who get infected with H1N1 virus.

As a step towards making the drug available, Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has also asked all the state drug controllers to issue Schedule X restrictive licences if required and vaccination to be taken up as a preventive measure to immune healthcare workers. It has also been instructed by the regulatory authorities that vaccination should not be taken by the general public. It has also to be borne in mind that panic-stricken patients refrain from taking medicines in an irrational way.

It was reported that many retailers, licenced to sell the drug and vaccine, had run out of stock as demand surged significantly in the past few weeks with increasing number of people testing positive for H1N1 influenza, creating panic among patients and their kin.

In Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi alone, medicines are difficult to access due to limited number of licenced stockists and chemists in retail drug stores, according to sources. Its reported shortage in retail drug stores in major parts of the country as also issues related to its irrational usage have been a major cause of concern for the health ministry.

The Union health ministry has recently placed an order for enhancing stock of diagnostic kits to be supplied to the lab network under Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) being used for testing H1N1 influenza. To enhance the level of preparedness, additional 60,000 oseltamivir medicines and 10,000 N-95 masks are being procured. National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has also floated a tender for additional 10,000 diagnostic kits. In case of need, labs under Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have been identified across the country to provide additional testing facilities.

The government data shows swine flu deaths have more than doubled compared to the previous year taking the toll to over 800 and over 13, 000 people have got infected. In 2014, 218 swine flu deaths were reported from a total of 937 cases, pan-India. Gujarat and Rajasthan have reported the maximum number of deaths followed by Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Haryana, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Delhi.