Kozhikode (Keralam), Oct 30 Health Minister K Muraleedharan on Friday said the government would take further action after receiving a report from an expert committee probing the allegations that expired doses of Remdesivir were administered to Nipah patients in Keralam in previous years.
However, critical care specialist Dr A S Anoop Kumar, who treated several Nipah patients at a private hospital, said that patients who died due to Nipah were not administered doses of Remdesivir.
Former Health Minister Veena George said that allegations raised by Muraleedharan are suspicious as the medicine has an expiry period of 2.5 to 5 years.
In a reply to a submission by Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan in the Assembly on Thursday, the minister said that Remdesivir procured in 2021 had an expiry date of May 2023 but might have been administered to patients admitted to Kozhikode Medical College till 2025.
Speaking to reporters here, Muraleedharan said the information presented to the Assembly was based on reports from responsible officials of the Health Department and that he would not make further comments until the expert committee submitted its findings.
The government would investigate whether the deaths of Nipah patients were linked to the administration of expired medicine and whether other patients who received the drug had suffered any adverse effects, Muraleedharan said.
“There are several doubts regarding the medicine, including whether it was administered after its expiry date. We will investigate and take a decision,” he said.
The minister clarified that there were no concerns about the quality or efficacy of Remdesivir itself and that the issue under investigation was whether expired doses had been administered to patients.
Recalling the procurement of the drug during the Nipah outbreak after the UDF government came to power, he said efforts to source it from different parts of the country had failed as the available stocks in Mumbai had expired.
Subsequently, the Kerala Medical Services Corporation Limited (KMSCL) informed the government that the medicine was available in Bahrain, following which it was procured within 48 hours, he said.
He said patients who received the medicine within its validity period had recovered and asserted that the controversy concerned its expiry date rather than the drug’s efficacy.
Muraleedharan said the expert committee headed by Dr R Aravind, head of the Infectious Diseases department at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, would conduct an impartial examination without any preconceived conclusions.
The probe would also examine how the medicine was procured and supplied, the role of intermediaries and the functioning of KMSCL.
The government would investigate whether any agents were involved in the procurement process, he said.
The minister also said the Kozhikode Medical College superintendent had informed him that the packaging of the Remdesivir medicine listed an expiry date but did not mention its manufacturing date. Both details are normally required on medicine packaging, and the discrepancy would be examined, he said.
“Further decisions on the issues would be taken after receiving the expert committee’s findings,” he said.
Nipah virus is a zoonotic virus that can be transmitted between animals and humans.
Fruit bats, also known as flying foxes, are the natural reservoir of the Nipah virus.
The virus can also cause illness in pigs and humans.
Meanwhile, Dr Anoop Kumar, in a video posted on his Facebook page, said that six people who died of the infection in Keralam between 2023 and 2025 had not received Remdesivir, and there was no link between the drug’s use and their deaths.
Kumar said Remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies had been used in the treatment of Nipah patients since the 2018 outbreak, based on available study data. However, there was no conclusive evidence about the effectiveness of these drugs against the infection.
He said the last production of Remdesivir in India, to his knowledge, was in 2022 and that the drug generally had a shelf life of two years.
“I do not know what type of medicine was administered to patients in the subsequent years. However, there is no connection between the Remdesivir supplied by KMSCL and the deaths of Nipah patients during the period in question,” he said.
CPI(M) leader and former Health Minister Veena George told the media that allegations by Muraleedharan are suspicious as Remdesivir’s expiry period is 2.5 to 5 years.
She said that KMSCL had purchased the antiviral drug from multiple companies in 2021 amid a global shortage.
George said KMSCL’s procurement software recorded the manufacturing and expiry dates of every batch of medicine purchased by the corporation. The details were also entered when the medicines were supplied to institutions or district warehouses.
The software also recorded when a particular batch was received at a warehouse and when it was supplied to hospitals, she said.
“As I understand it, no movement of a medicine is possible after the expiry date recorded in the system. The software locks the medicine after its expiry,” she said.
George said the KMSCL records showed that one batch of Remdesivir was procured on May 7, 2021, with an expiry date in June 2023.
The last supply mentioned in the records was made on July 22, with an expiry date of September 30, 2025, she said.
(PTI News)
