Seven people were arrested for running a fake Remdesivir injection manufacturing unit in Kotdwar in Uttarakhand. The accused were arrested after the Delhi Police conducted raids in Kotdwar, Roorkee, and Haridwar.

Police also recovered 196 fake "ready to sell fake Remdesivir injections" and 3,000 empty vials from the spot.

Moreover, police found the accused have already sold 2,000 fake Remdesivir injections. The accused used to sell fake Remdesivir injection for Rs 25,000, police said.

The mastermind, Aaditya Gautam, used to run the factory where medicines were manufactured. But, in the wake of rising demand for Remdesivir drugs, he started operating a unit to make fake Remdesivir injections.

Remdesivir is an anti-viral drug that prevents further replication of a virus.

Several cases of black marketing of Remdesivir have emerged in the last few months as the demand for the drug spiked after the rise in Covid-19 cases across India.

HOW TO DISTINGUISH FAKE REMDESIVIR FROM REAL ONES:

* Fake Remdesivir packages do not have "Rx" written on them just before the name of the injection.

* A capitalization error in the third line written on the package. The genuine package reads as "100 mg/Vial" while the fake one has "100 mg/vial" written on it

* There is an alignment error in the brand name of the product. Note the gap on the package of fake and genuine Remdesivir injections. The fake vial has an increased gap

* There is another capitalization error below the brand name in "Vial/vial" on the fake package.

* One more capitalization error is found at the bottom of the front side of the fake Remdesivir package. "For use in" written on the genuine package becomes "for use in" on the fake drug package

* On the back of the box, the "Warning" label is in red on the genuine package. The fake one has a black warning label

* Just below the warning label, key information "Covifir [brand name] is manufactured under the license from Gilead Sciences, Inc" is missing on the fake injection package

There is a capitalization error in the text identifying the drug-maker, Hetero Labs. The fake Remdesivir package reads India as "India"

* There is a spelling error in the full address on the package containing the fake Remdesivir injection. It spells Telangana as "Telangana".

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