Ahmedabad, April 24: The hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) production in India has gone up to 35-40 crore HCQ tablets in a month and there is no shortage of the drug in India, Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association (IDMA), Gujarat said on Friday. According to  a tweet by ANI, Viranchi Shah, Chairman, of IDMA Gujarat said that the country is producing over 35-40 crore HCQ tablets in a month to fight coronavirus crisis. "Our current production capacity of Hydroxychloroquine is 35-40 Cr tablets a month. This is 10 times more than our requirement. There is no shortage of HCQ in India", Shah said. Catch Live Updates Related to Coronavirus in India and Other Parts of the World

Earlier this month, the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) had said that pharma companies are ramping up production of the key medicines to meet demand. It assured that the country has adequate supply of the anti-malaria tablets 'Hydroxychloroquine' for both domestic and export demand along with other key medicines. What is Hydroxychloroquine? Know All About The Drug That Donald Trump Has Been Speaking About And That Will be Exported by India to Coronavirus-Hit Countries.

According to data published from the health ministry on Friday, the total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in India climbed to 23,077 while the death toll mounted to 718. On March 25, India had banned the export of Hydroxychloroquine. However, on April 6, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) notified lifting of restrictions on 14 drugs, including Hydroxychloroquine.

Here's the tweet:

India holds almost 70 per cent global capacity of manufacturing HCQ. Before this COVID-19 situation, HCQ was traditionally used for treating Malaria and certain arthritis conditions. In the last week, the Health Ministry had said 83 per cent of coronavirus cases had comorbidities and 75.3 per cent people who succumbed to the viral infection are above 60 years. It added saying that the mortality rate due to COVID-19 in India is around 3.3 per cent and research on side effects of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is underway.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 24, 2020 10:47 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).