HYDERABAD: The Telangana government has constituted a three-member committee to look into the allocation of the drug Tocilizumab for critical ICU patients not responding to steroids. On Friday, the Health Department issued a memo stating that the government has constituted the committee for allocation of Tocilizumab to Covid-19 patients in both government and private hospitals in the State.
The committee members will include the Director of Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences, Director of Medical Education, and Director of Public Health and Family Welfare. They will scrutinise the application made by the hospitals on who they would want to use the drug on.
The criteria that make a patient eligible for this drug are -no active bacterial/fungal/tubercular infection or not improving despite use of steroids. The patient must also have significantly raised inflammatory markers (CRP &/or IL-6) and have presence of severe disease (preferably within 24 to 48 hours of onset of severe disease/ICU admission). The hospital must also appoint a three-member committee to process each request.