Outdated medicine? For BBMP, it’s fine

It is shocking that the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is issuing outdated medicines in kits being supplied to Covid-infected patients under home isolation. While this indicates that the authorities have learnt nothing from the bitter experience of the first two waves, they seem to be woefully unprepared to handle the third even as the cases are surging across the state, particularly in Bengaluru. The kit issued by the BBMP has a bottle of sanitiser, a triple-layer mask, Vitamin C, Zinc, paracetamol, Ivermectin and Doxycycline tablets. Based on the recommendation of Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), the Union Health Ministry had revised the guidelines for treating Covid patients, dropping Ivermectin and Doxycycline from the protocol. The government had retained only antipyretic drugs for fever and antitussive for cold symptoms, while discouraging medical practitioners from prescribing unnecessary tests such as CT scan. While in some districts, doctors continue to prescribe these medicines in the absence of proper guidance and support from the state government, BBMP is distributing leftover kits from the second wave, during which time Ivermectin and Doxycycline were part of the recommended drugs.

BBMP’s Chief Health Officer A S Balasundar acknowledges that outdated kits were distributed among patients and assures that appropriate instructions will be issued to zonal officials. Instead, he should have identified those responsible for the lapse and initiated action against them. Unfortunately, such callousness and lackadaisical attitude have come to be accepted as the norm in the civic body where accountability is virtually unknown. These are issues over which the Covid Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) should exercise regular oversight to ensure that strict protocols are maintained in the treatment of patients. Instead of monitoring the situation at the ground level and tying up all loose ends to ensure that the situation does not go out of control, the TAC appears to believe that the solution lies in imposing night curfews and weekend lockdowns, which WHO’s Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan says have no scientific basis.

While at this point in time, both the severity of the disease and hospitalisation rate are low, Karnataka has also made good progress in vaccinating a large number of the target population. But the state cannot remain complacent. Curfews only give a false sense of security and the government should, as the WHO says, adopt evidence-based methods to strike a balance between controlling transmission and reducing the impact on the people while at the same time keeping economies open.