Families struggle to import life-saving drugs as lockdown hits grey market

With no new stock coming in, both patients and grey market vendors started running out of vigabatrin

A senior police officer in Odisha, a disability rights commissioner in Tamil Nadu, customs and airline officials around the country, health ministry bureaucrats, pharmaceutical company executives, public health activists and parents of children with epileptic seizures. This is the main cast of people who have been working tirelessly since the Covid-19 pandemic hit India in March 2020 to procure an important drug--vigabatrin--that helps prevent epileptic seizures in children.

While vigabatrin, which comes as a strip of 10 tablets, has always been bought and sold in India’s grey market, the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown broke down a