Thiruvananthapuram: Nipah patients in Kerala were administered expired medication in previous years, Health Minister K Muraleedharan told the Assembly on Thursday. The government will constitute a medical board headed by Dr R Aravind, head of the infectious diseases department at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, to investigate the use of the expired drug.

Responding to a submission by Mathew Kuzhalnadan, the minister said remdesivir, a drug used in the treatment of diseases such as Nipah and COVID-19, had been supplied to hospitals exclusively through the Kerala Medical Services Corporation (KMSCL).

The corporation last purchased the drug on June 3, 2021. Its expiry date was May 30, 2023. However, 104 vials from the same stock were administered to patients over the next three years, the minister said. Of the 11 people who contracted Nipah during this period, six died.

In 2026, after the UDF government came to power, one person was diagnosed with Nipah. The drug was procured from Bahrain on June 12, and the patient recovered.

However, Dr R Chandni, former Nipah nodal officer, said medicines were usually administered only after checking their expiry dates and that the possibility of expired drugs being given was unlikely.

She said only one patient had been admitted for Nipah treatment at Kozhikode Medical College in 2023, and the patient survived. In 2024, another patient arrived in a critical condition and died soon after admission. There was little time to administer the medicine, she said.

Experimental drug from US
Meanwhile, questions have also emerged over the use of an experimental drug manufactured by US-based pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences at Kozhikode Medical College.

The drug, whose packaging reportedly carried the label ‘For clinical trial’, had reached the hospital through KMSCL. However, corporation officials said they had no records to establish that the medicine had been purchased by the agency. They are examining whether it was sponsored by any government agency.

Officials are also investigating the absence of manufacturing details on the drug. Medicines are generally required to carry their manufacturing dates, but authorities are examining whether an exemption applies to drugs meant for investigational use. The medicine had an expiry date of September 2025, according to the packaging.

A total of 690 vials of the US-manufactured drug arrived on January 1, 2022. The first 10 doses were administered to Nipah patients on September 13, 2023. According to KMSCL records, 256 vials were used in multiple batches, while 453 remained in stock.