Corona Fear Factor: Now Vitamin C supplements shortages felt

New Delhi: Availability of Vitamin C and other supplements are getting hampered as massive demand triggered by Coronavirus outbreak has overtaken supply, industry insiders said.

Interestingly, medical practitioners pointed out that public is getting confused between the Novel Coronavirus and the seasonal viral fever, both of which show similar symptoms.

This confusion and fear has triggered a binge buying of preventive supplements based on Zinc and Vitamin C supplements.

Lately, the availability of some personal protection equipment (PPEs) such as face masks, gloves and hand sanitizers have become acute due to the fear based binge buying.

Some industry insiders claim that prices have drastically increased in the last few weeks as a result of raw material shortages that have occurred due to the lock down in China.

In the current context, people are going after any medicine known to boost immunity such as Vitamin C chewable tablets and Zinc based supplements, said a pharmaceutical industry executive.

However, medical practitioners have deemed the usage of such supplements as unnecessary in the fight against the Coronavirus.

“People are getting confused between the common cold or flu and Coronavirus fever. Proper hygiene and precautionary steps are enough to prevent the spread of Coronavirus,” Dr Mohit Goel, Senior Consultant and HOD Neurology at Batra Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Delhi, said.

“Stocking of masks, hand sanitizers by public due to the fear of an outbreak is unnecessary. Supplements such a Vitamin C tablets will not be able to prevent the spread, only precautionary steps such as proper hygiene will.”

According to Abhay Pandey, National President, All Food and Drug Licence Holder Foundation (AFDLHF), currently, raw material prices of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) have jumped significantly due to the lock down in China.

Consequently, several domestic companies have stopped producing the drug, which caused a shortage of Vitamin C pills in the market.

“Price control on Vitamin C tablets has kept the cost as low as Rs 5 for 10 pills, so many manufacturers are simply not interested to manufacture this,” Pandey said.

However, Shirish Ghoge, an independent industry expert and a former senior director with Abbott and Sanofi said: “In order to ensure that the manufacturers don’t run into losses and supplies continue uninterrupted, they may be incentivised by an ad hoc price increase under the DPCO (drug price control order) in the public interest by NPPA till the situation becomes normal.”

On the retail end, e-major PharmEasy’s Amit Khanna said: “We are offering Vitamin C alternatives but industry as a whole is facing difficulties to cater to the growing demand as it has overshot supply by several times.”

“Hopefully, with the rise in temperature this issue will become manageable.”

Medical experts believe that a gradual rise in the mean temperatures should curb the ability of the virus to stay airborne, thus containing its spread.

By IANS