The sufferings of the economies because of the impact of Covid-19 has led to losses of finances of businesses, job loss of employees, and has changed the lifestyle of the people. But this has not at all stumbled upon the pharmaceutical industry. Many pharmaceutical companies have seen extraordinary growth in the stock market and in the creation of vaccines that can be used for the treatment of patients of this epidemic. At the same time even they are facing the same trauma during the time of clinical need.
India has the third-largest pharmaceutical industry that manufactures and supplies about 60 per cent of vaccines in the global markets. It has been able to supply vaccines for measles, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and bacillus Calmette Guerin that has satisfied the World Health Organization. The supply of generic drugs for vaccines from India is at a very low cost and affordable to the global markets and these drugs have been certified and approved by many plants. The ingredients used in these drugs are said to achieve 6 billion dollars in revenue by the end of the year.
For controlling and arresting the Covid-19 pandemic, the APIs have played an important part as has been reported about the Indian pharmaceutical industry. India is the main source for supplying of generic drugs through APIs sources. But the APIs used by the Indian pharmaceutical industry for manufacturing of such drugs is mostly dependent on China. Most of the procuring activities and export of this drug takes place in the Chinese industry.
The API sources of the Indian pharmaceutical industry are hugely dependent on China for almost all its activities in terms of vaccines and drugs. Its dependency on procurement is only on China. There was a severe shortage of manpower for exportation and manufacturing of plants from China to India due to restrictions being put in India. The quarantine policies placed such restrictions. Furthermore, disruptions were faced by logistics and transportation systems due to restricted movements on products to places. All these have suffered the shock only because of the CoV-2 coronavirus outbreak.
The low-cost production of generic drugs by India from China through their API sources led to supply on a larger scale that also formulated the growth of the Indian pharmaceutical industry. India selling the drugs at a very low cost made it the third-largest pharmaceutical industry in the world statistics.
Since the introduction of the pandemic started from China, this has also led the national health security and NITI Aayog to put a full stop for the time being of supply chain, manufacturing and logistics system of generic drugs from India to other parts of the globe via API sources of China. This is the only way the Covid-19 can be curbed and somewhat controlled it can’t be fully eradicated immediately. It has also made suggestions on getting clearance from the ministry of environment and exempt taxes and subsidies for encouraging and nurturing in the development of the pharmaceutical industry in India.
For creating and promoting APIs in India the government has been advised to design such strategies that can help in proper production of APIs by erasing financial and technical barriers so that the pharmaceutical industry does not have to bend in front of China for their export and manufacturing systems. Very recently it put an incentive package for promotion of domestic manufacturing of drugs, APIs and medical services and the government was also clapped for this initiative.
The Indian pharmaceutical industry has a large labour pool, advanced technologies to meet regulatory standard markets of global countries, which enables the global markets to have great advantages of its system. The pharmaceutical industry right now has been able to introduce vaccines that are specifically meant to treat Covid-19. The supplies for these vaccines has started but with slower movements.
The epidemic has shaken the entire globe and the country and its various sectors. This has also given encouragement to medical, pharmaceutical and supply chain industries to take enough actions and work nonstop on combating the virus till some extend for its spread even more. The virus has pressurized such industries and has forced them to be on their toes during this peak period of the year.
The scientists and researches in India are working and researching on the medicines that can form such drugs that can be used for vaccination of coronavirus. All these things take a lot of time because no one wants to supply the wrong medication or drug and there are many tests and trials that are being conducted to see how much is it able to defect this virus.
Currently, the situation in India has calmed down quite a lot but still, there are many cases being detected in the city and its neighbouring regions. There are still many places in Delhi that are under containment zones and in fact more hot spots have been added to the list. The best part is the recovery rate is also increasing which is being able to balance the number of confirmed cases. India having the largest economy has become prey to the virus. Somewhere down the line, I feel that an evil eye was surrounding the country that has allowed the pandemic to enter and destroy the lives of the people. Every day in the news we are hearing that India fought against dengue and pollution but the Covid-19 is a dangerous virus. It forced the country to go into a 3 months lockdown and experience a quarantine life, which never happened during dengue or any other disease.
The symptoms of the virus are so strong that it has led to so many deaths and still, the rate is increasing with Maharashtra being the worst-hit state of the country followed by Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat and Delhi. This disease has even forced migrants to go back to their villages for food, job and shelter. So the comparison between dengue and Covid-19 cannot be done as the latter has made a bigger impact.
