TNI Bureau:  Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Monday released the first batch of Anti-COVID-19 Medicine 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) developed by Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO).

2-DG has been developed by the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), a lab of DRDO, in collaboration with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL), Hyderabad. The medicine 2-DG comes in powder form in a sachet, which is taken orally by dissolving it in water.

During this occasion, DRDO Chairman Dr G Satheesh Reddy said that DRDO and Dr Reddy’s lab had gone through the complete trials and conducted trials across 30 hospitals and on a large number of patients. All clinical trials have showed that it helps in the faster recovery of hospitalized patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence.

The first batch of 10,000 doses of 2DG medicine would be launched early next week, informed the DRDO officials.

Notably, daily COVID-19 figures dropped below the 3-lakh marks for the first time today, since April 21. In the last 24 hours 281,386 new Covid cases were reported-lowest in 25 days and 4,106 deaths, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

Amid the concerns of the second wave of COVID-19 and rising number corona related deaths in the country, this new medicine 2-DG brought a ray of hope for COVID patients and is expected to save precious lives from the deadly virus.