December 24, 2002	Tuesday	Shawwal 19, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 23: Some 20 life-saving drugs, prices of which were reduced by the government recently, are still being sold at old prices in the market.

The health minister, Mohammad Nasir Khan, recently announced that the government had considerably decreased the prices of 20 medicines to ameliorate the sufferings of patients.

However, a survey revealed that still there was no respite for the patients and the medicines were being sold at the old prices.

“Neither the manufacturers have received any circular nor the government has issued any statutory regulatory order (SRO)in connection with decrease in prices,” said Mohammad Saleem Paracha, the owner of a drug service in twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

He said the announcement was just meant for newspapers only. Unless the written instructions for the implementation of government orders are issued, the prices would not be decreased, he added.

Another distributor of a reputed company also shared the same opinion saying that “it is not true that the prices have been decreased.

An owner of a drug store said the drug companies manoeuvred delay in the issuance of orders so that they could exhaust their old stocks and then they supplied fresh medicines with decreased prices.

Another pharmacist said he had received fresh stocks of medicines on Saturday which contained many of the medicines that were included in the list of 20 medicines.

The distributors’ behaviour shows that this time, the companies will wait for months before supplying medicines with new prices, he said.

He recalled that many companies had still not adjusted the prices’ medicines after the announcement of 15 per cent general sales tax withdrawal on drugs.

According to the list issued on December 17, the prices of different leader brands were considerably reduced. The prices of Tarivid have been reduced from Rs296.7 to Rs150, Zithromax from Rs733 to Rs180, Ciproxim 250 mg/tab from Rs286 to Rs 130 while the prices of 500mg/tab have been reduced to Rs260 from Rs417, Tavenic 250 mg/tab to Rs260 from Rs417 and its 500mg/tab to Rs420 from Rs821, Protieum to Rs440 from Rs863, Losec to Rs200 from Rs688, Taxol to Rs6,000 from Rs9642, Singuliar to Rs310 from 1,301, Rocephine to Rs300 from Rs477, Zocor to Rs290 from 671, Vioxx 12.5mg/tab of MSD to Rs80 from Rs266 and its 25mg/tab to Rs150 from Rs560, Fortum of GSK to Rs103 from Rs145, Zyprexa 5mg/tab to Rs150 from Rs1320 and its 7.5mg/tab to Rs282 from Rs2981 and its 10mg/tab to Rs948 from Rs9,922 and Ribazole to Rs745 from Rs1,004.