Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has brought fundamental changes to our priorities and problems, especially those related to the healthcare sector. The COVID-19 pandemic put even the world's most advanced healthcare systems to the test and India's healthcare system has been rattled as well. In this accordance, the Indian government has introduced many new policies and schemes like free vaccination drive, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and free COVID care under Ayushman Bharat. With the continuation of COVID-19, problems like Self-medication and hoarding of medicines among the common population keep on rising and this was due to flu-like symptoms of COVID-19, miss information on social media, or due to less or no interaction between patients and doctors as the population is now shifting to telemedicine which offers the benefit of consultation at their own home. These situations served as a boon to the Pharma sector as stocks of many pharma companies and industries have been reported to have increased in the past 2 years of the pandemic due to an increase in demand and manufacturing and consumption of pharmaceutical goods and also reportedly being increased by alot in coming years. However, this rapid growth of the pharmaceutical sector is beneficial for pharmacists, businessmen, and others who are directly or indirectly associated with the healthcare fraternity but in our opinion, it will negatively impact the Indian economy or can be viewed as a problem which can lead to the downfall of the qualitative aspect of the pharma sector in the long term.

Keywords: COVID-19, Indian healthcare, telemedicine, pharma sector, self-medication, respiratory syndrome.

Graphical Abstract