MYSURU: Pharmacists and the personnel of neighbourhood medical stores, who provide medicines amidst the prescription surge, are facing the risk of contracting the virus as they are seeing many infected persons coming to buy medicines.
Over 70% of the Covid infected in the district have opted for home isolation. Of them, many patients and their primary contacts are defying the quarantine norms and are making walk-ins to the medical shops to buy immunity boosters and other essential medicines.
This trend has made pharmacists and the employees of drug stores apprehensive as they are very vulnerable to getting infected. “A person came to our store to buy immunity boosters and medicine for coughing. When we asked him for a doctor’s prescription, he said that he had received a call from the health department saying he had tested positive and suggested he be in home isolation.
Since he had no one to help him get medicines, he came to our store,” said a medical store owner at Kuvempunagar. Though pharmacists and medical store owners are providing Covid kits at doorsteps, many who are unaware of the facility are going to medical stores or sending their primary contacts, putting the lives of the pharmacists at risk.
More than 10 medical shops were sealed and fumigated after several positive patients visited their stores. Meanwhile, pharmacists are taking utmost care of their employees, providing them the needed protective gear. Kaushik Devaraju, president of Karnataka Registered Pharmacists Association, said, “Over a period of one month, at least three pharmacists have succumbed to Covid in the region. Pharmacists are aware of the safety measures and are wearing all the safety gear. We are conducting weekly webinars on the safety measures for them.”