- How will the common man foot the bill?
Various kinds of Covid-19 therapies are currently at the trial stage all over the world. Roche’s anti-inflammatory drug Actemra is one which is already being tested in China and India with reports of patients having shown drastic improvement. On Wednesday, the Punjab Health Ministry arranged a meeting of vice-chancellors of medical universities, principals of medical colleges, members of the government’s Corona Expert Advisory Group (CEAG), leading pulmonologists and professors of medicine to discuss the findings of the use of Actemra on serious cases of covid-19 at a number of hospitals in Punjab. The meeting approved the use of the medicine.
There are two problems with the new treatment. As the drug is being administered to covid-19 patients for the first time, it requires a longer period to fully examine its effects on patients. Several wonder drugs of the past turned out to be only partially effective; a few had to be withdrawn and in cases they were found to be accompanied by other health hazards. Again, Rs 60,000 being the current price for a single dose, it is a rich man’s cure out of the reach of the common people who constitute the bulk of the patients.
The country’s first covid-19 patient recovered with plasma therapy only four weeks back. Here too a longer time span is needed to judge the efficacy of the treatment. Plasma from Karachi donors has been shared with hospitals in Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta. A small number of hospitals have been allowed to administer the treatment by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP)
The Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) in Peshawar, which offers the experimental treatment, had to stop admitting new coronavirus patients after all its beds were occupied within a few days. Presently the plasma comes from volunteers but soon it will be available only on payment unless the government sets up a Plasma Bank like the Blood Banks. While the new therapies are welcome, the common man who is being forced to choose between health and his family’s livelihood, might not be able to afford the treatment. This will lead many to conclude that while we might be in the same storm, we are not in the same boat.
