Amidst the Chinese Hubei province that was the epicenter of a deadly coronavirus outbreak, coming back to normalcy, the government of India is expected to lift the ban on the exports on certain antibiotics and anti-diarrheal drugs. Notably, India is mostly dependent on China for the bulk of its raw materials and had banned the exports of certain medicine since February.
As per a report in the Economic Times, of 13 medicines, which were put under restrictions for exports, the center is likely to allow drugs including paracetamol, tinidazole, metronidazole, ornidazole, and azithromycin to be shipped to other countries.
The recommendation to lift the ban on the exports of these drugs has been given by an empowered group headed by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority chairperson Shubha Singh. Antibiotics including chloramphenicol, neomycin, metronidazole, Vitamins B1, B12, B6, and the hormone progesterone were among the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and formulations that the government has banned from being exported.
Hubei: Major hub for medicines
One of the people said, "Keeping in view that India has enough stock, now that the supply has started from Hubei, the government is contemplating reversing its decision from five such drugs."
China is one of the major source countries for India to import bulk drugs after which the latter exports finished drugs to other countries. Interestingly, to manufacture antibiotics like metronidazole, chloramphenicol and azithromycin major chunk of drugs and APIs are imported from the Chinese town of Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province that was the epicenter of COVID-19 outbreak.
Moreover, Hubei is also rich in minerals and exports borax, copper, gypsum, rock salt, coal, magnesium to India. China's orders to lockdown over 4.5 crore people stopped the imports of the bulk of imports. At the time of filing this report more than 8.3 lakhs cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed all across the world with over 39,000 deaths.
