India, the world's main supplier of generic drugs, has restricted the export of 26 pharmaceutical ingredients and the medicines made from them, including paracetamol, as the coronavirus outbreak plays havoc with supply chains.

Indian drug makers rely on China, the source of the virus outbreak, for almost 70 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for their medicines.

Pharmacies have also been warned not to engage in price gouging, and there are reports of the cost of face masks increasing.

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Industry experts said they were likely to face shortages if the epidemic drags on.

"Export of specified APIs and formulations made from these APIs … is hereby 'restricted' with immediate effect and till further orders," the Director General of Foreign Trade said in a statement on Tuesday (local time), without explaining the extent of the restrictions.

The government's list of 26 APIs and medicines accounts for 10 percent of all Indian pharmaceutical exports and includes several antibiotics, such as tinidazole and erythromycin, the hormone progesterone and vitamin B12 as well as the common pain killer paracetamol.

"Irrespective of the ban, some of these molecules may face shortages for the next couple of months," Dinesh Dua, chairman of the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India, said.

"If coronavirus is not contained, then in that case there could be acute shortages," Mr Dua said.

What is the global impact?

The Indian Government — which has so far confirmed 28 cases of the coronavirus, including 16 Italian travellers — urged calm and said there were enough stocks to manufacture formulations for two to three months.

It was unclear how the restriction would impact the availability of these medicines in the countries that import from India and also depend on China.

In the United States, for instance, Indian imports accounted for 24 percent of medicines and 31 percent of medicine ingredients in 2018, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn told US senators on Tuesday the agency is working to determine how the restrictions will affect the US medical supply and the effect on essential medicines.

The FDA last week announced the first coronavirus-related drug shortage in the United States but declined to name the drug in question.

Mr Hahn said on Tuesday the drug was in shortage because of a lack of materials needed to make the API.

Mr Dua said Europe was "panicking".

"I am getting a huge number of calls from Europe because it is very sizeably dependent on Indian formulations and we control almost 26 percent of the European formulations in the generic space," he said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced it was setting up a group to look at further repercussions in the market.

"At the moment, it's not as restrictive as we see right now with personal protective equipment, but the fear is that the ripple effects will make shortages in those medicines as well," head of WHO operations support and logistics Paul Molinaro said.

In a statement, the Indian federal Government said state authorities had been asked to monitor the production and availability of APIs and formulations to prevent black marketing and hoarding.

ABC/Reuters

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