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stores inside the hospital.

“Even if you pay me double the actual price, I cannot give you a single bag. You can look for it inside the hospital. Because the companies have been prioritising the hospitals,” Khairul said.

Saline producers, on the other hand, claimed that the crisis is at “manageable level”.

“There is a crisis, but it is not like that the hospitals will run out of saline. We have been prioritising need-based supply,” Khairul Bashar, assistant vice-president of Orion Infusion Ltd, told this correspondent yesterday.

He said his company over the last one month has been running its factory even on the weekends and is currently producing around 2,200 bags a day.

“Around 80 percent of our production is normal saline. All six companies collectively can produce around one lakh bags of saline daily. So, there is no need for importing saline,” he added.

The other saline producers are -- Beximco, Libra Infusions, Opsonin, Popular, and The ACME Laboratories.

Md Salahuddin, deputy director at Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA), told this newspaper on Sunday, “It is not possible to increase production overnight.”