NEW DELHI: The lockdown due to the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak has severely hampered the supply of anti-tuberculosis (TB) drugs to the central government ’s National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP), prompting the health ministry to recommend a ban on export of these drugs.Leading anti-TB drugs manufacturers Macleods and Lupin — with factories at Ankleshwar and Bharuch in Gujarat, Baddi in Himachal Pradesh and Daman in Daman and Diu — have written to the health ministry highlighting that in view of the emergency measures undertaken, availability of manpower and material to the pharmaceutical industry is limited, affecting their production capacity.Health secretary Preeti Sudan has written to an empowered group of government officials to direct the department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) and commerce ministry to ban export of the drugs.