5 held for advertising black fungus medicine

Receiving information that a few people were advertising online that medicines for mucormycosis were available and would be delivered at their doorstep, a special team was formed to investigate the matter.

It was found that Saravanan of Vandalur was the first one to post the advertisement online. On Friday evening, police arrested Saravanan from his house.

Based on the information Saravanan gave, police arrested two others, Arivarasan and Thambidurai, employees of a pharmacy, Vignesh from Thanjavur, a private hospital worker in Chennai, and Nirmal Kumar, a private firm employee, on Saturday morning.

Officials said the gang had posted an advertisement on Hylo that medicines for mucormycosis were available for delivery at Rs 36,000.

The police have registered a case and are inquiring from where the gang was getting medicines and how many were sold so far. Police suspect that a few more people who are working in hospitals might be involved in this racket. Further inquiry is on.