Demand for fever meds, test kits soars in Kolkata after Covid case spurt

Kolkata: As the Covid-19 cases in West Bengal are rising, demand for paracetamol, antibiotic and multivitamins with multi-minerals has gone up at city medical stores. The demand for self-test kits is also growing.

Pharmacy owners in Kolkata on Friday said that there has been a steady increase in the demand for paracetamol and antibiotics commonly used for the upper respiratory infection symptoms. On Thursday, the Bengal government issued an advisory urging fully vaccinated and asymptomatic people to attend public gatherings.

“Paracetamol, azithromycin and amoxicillin with clavulanic acid are a few medicines that have seen a steady demand over the past fortnight. While these medicines are no indicator for probable Covid-19 cases, we have seen high consumption of these drugs during the earlier waves too,” said Sajal Ganguly, secretary of the Bengal Chemists and Druggists Association (BCDA).

“A day before we had two buyers asking for Molnupiravir. One also asked for Favipiravir,” said Arun Malas, district secretary (east Kolkata) of BCDA. Molnupiravir, an antiviral that inhibits replication of certain RNA viruses and was used in the earlier Covid-19 waves. Favipiravir, an anti-viral, too was prescribed by a few doctors in past two years.

Demand for self-test kits has started to grow slowly. Malas, who has a medicine outlet in Salt Lake, sold 14 pieces of self-test kits on Friday. Metro Pharma is selling 60 self-test kits per day on an average through its 11 retail shops in Kolkata.

“Antibiotics have no role in the viral infection. But they may be used if bacterial infection sets in following viral infection of upper or lower respiratory tract,” said Pinaki De (consultant physician, ILS Dumdum). “What is worrying for doctors, is the delay as well as refusal by patients in getting tested,” he added.

“We are also seeing an uptake of anti-allergic medicines like cetirizine and antihistamine. Multivitamin and multi-mineral is again on the demand now. Sales of cough syrup too are high now. However, we expected sales of masks to go up with the rise in Covid cases. But people seem to be reluctant about using masks,” Somnath Ghosh of Metro Pharma said.