Chennai, May 19 (IANS): The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday started selling Remdesivir, the anti viral drug useful in treating Covid-19 patiemts, directly to private hospitals. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin distributed the first batch containing 960 vials to 25 hospitals at a sale counter which was set up at Nehru Stadium in Chennai.

The development came after private hospitals asked the relatives of the patients to get the drug directly. The drug was priced in the black market at Rs 40,000 per vial and this led to a rethinking among the policy makers in the government, after which the government decided to directly supply the medicine to the private hospitals.

Now private hospitals are not allowed to ask the relatives of patients to buy the drug from the market.

A total of 343 private hospitals have registered on the portal (tnmsc.tn.gov.in) which was launched by the state health department to sell the drug, out of which 51 of these hospitals have registered for Remdesivir drug by submitting required documents (patients' medical records and ID proofs).

Tamil Nadu health department in a statement said that after verification, a representative of these hospitals can collect the drug from the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation (TNMSC) counters set up at Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, Trichy and Tirunelveli.