Prologues
The shadowy coronavirus eruption in the Chinese city Wuhan by December 2019, now called as COVID-19, and its reckless blowout to several other countries, jeopardizes thousands of lives, led to a medical emergency all over the world. The pandemic has catalysed the development of novel coronavirus drugs or vaccines across pharmaceutical, biotech companies and research organisations. Currently, there are no definite vaccines or treatments. However, there are numerous clinical trials by several pharmaceutical companies is ongoing to achieve a potential treatment.
Outbursts
“From an economic perspective, the key issue is not just the number of cases of COVID-19, but the level of disruption to economies from containment measures”
-Ben May, Head of Global Macro Research at Oxford Economics.
The virus outburst has transformed as one of the prime threats to the worldwide economy and financial markets. Several outbreak effects are:
- Global stocks of hit
- Declining crash of oil prices
- High recession risk
- Turn to advanced and fruitful technology
- Hardest hit in tourism throughout the world
- Visibility of lockdowns mere consequence
- Unemployment of a large section of common people
Governments around the world have admonished workforces to continue from home whereas possible. The travel industry has been dreadfully damaged. Stockholders dread that the outbreak of the coronavirus will extinguish the economic growth and that governmental authority may not be enough to halt the decline.
Pharmacists and Pharmacies; the Frontline of Public Health
As an increasing number of countries and towns are in lockdown condition, millions of public are in isolation and are maintaining social distancing inside their homes. It has indeed observed all over the globe that the pharmacy professionals are acting frontline roles enormously. Pharmacists are a fundamental element of healthcare providing extraordinary services in the earlier pandemics and health calamity also.
Community pharmacists and their teams remain on the front of public health during the outbreak by serving as direct access for patients, keen-sighted patients and reducing the patients’ load on health practices. Community pharmacists also endure to play their uninterrupted action for consistent supplies of medication as well as other needful supporting. The International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) has dispensed a pack of 10 synopses for guidance on COVID-19. Other pharmaceutical association has also providing guidelines and needful documents for the solidification and attentiveness of the community pharmacies as front line health care workers in the global health crisis.
Pharmacies around the world are one of the few places that are kept open for public service even during the strict lockdowns.
A Wakeup Call for Pharma Industry Globally
As economies around the world are suffering from the impact of Covid-19 and many business faces the challenges but pharmaceutical businesses captivating step in the Covid-19 fight. Such as Eli Lilly and Gilead are farsighted growth on the market and a novel torrent of invention in the communicable disease scenery as the treatment approval for a Covid-19 cure takes off. Other pharmaceutical companies also following ensemble during the Covid-19 pandemic and using their individual proficiencies to alleviate the cargo of coronavirus. As more clinical trials are performing, novel therapies may achieve. However, during this financial regression and global health fears, the contribution of pharmaceutical firms is on the mark and their impression on the competition against the virus will not be simply forgotten. The perception of large revenues coming from newly established drugs will face amplified inspection in a time of global pandemic as an outcome of communal and competitive pressures.
Pharmaceutical scenario in India
India is a chief provider of low-priced drugs all over the world and is truly recognized as the ‘Pharmacy of the World’. It ranks 3rd, worldwide for pharmaceutical production by volume, 13th by value and accounts for about 10% of the world’s production by volume and 1.5% by value. 50% of the United States’ generic drug needs are met by India. The Indian pharma industry aspires to become the world’s largest supplier of drugs by 2030. All major pharma industries have come all together to aid with knowledge and sharing information to safeguard production of medications critical to tackle coronavirus. Alembic is operating at 80% formulation capacity and its API plant is operational at around 60-70% capacity. Similarly, Zydus, a foremost manufacturer of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) has already augmented its capacity to produce both the API and the other formulation manifold. Additionally, other reputed and other companies is also prioritising the manufacturing of drugs that are in high demand now, like azithromycin. A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared HCQ supplies from India to countries like the US, Brazil and Israel.
Rays of Hope Amidst
The role and necessity of pharmacist is reshaping its approach towards society. Now Their true value is exposed due to their services towards masses including utmost care, psychological support etc.
There are substantial global exertions proceeding to diagnose, cure and avert infections from the virus. Pharmaceutical firms are working universally to battle Covid-19 from scientific data gained from eras of knowledge with comparable viruses and undertaking novel inventories of research to identify additional potential treatments for R&D.
References:
- https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
- https://thebluecircle.co/2020/05/04/covid-19-a-wakeup-call-for-indias-pharma-industry/
- https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51706225 Bukhari, Nadia, Huma Rasheed, and Bismah Nayyer. “Pharmacists at the frontline beating the COVID-19 pandemic.” (2020): 1-4
- https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/comment/covid-19-pharmaceutical-companies-impact/
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