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| April 16, 2006 | Sunday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 17, 1427 |
Strategy to check sale of spurious drugs soon
ISLAMABAD, April 15: Health regulators of the four provinces will start working on a strategy from Monday to check sale of spurious drugs in the market.
“The spurious drugs issue is very sensitive and needs to be handled carefully and unnecessary media hype can be exploited by our neighbouring competitors,” an official source told Dawn here on Saturday.
A similar campaign against substandard drugs during the period of former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif was exploited by some regional competitors that led to cancellation of a number of export agreements.
There is no denying the fact that quality of drugs produced by Pakistan outmatches our competitors and the demand of locally produced drugs are increasing internationally with our export figures going up by 15 to 20 per cent annually, he said.
However sometimes unscrupulous elements supply adulterated medicines in the market due to weak monitory mechanism of the departments concerned. These drugs not only endanger public health, but also bring a bad name to the government, he said.
That is why Health Secretary Anwar Mehmood, in line with the orders of the Supreme Court, has called the meeting on April 17 in which the four provincial health secretaries, directors general health of the provinces, chief drug inspectors and drug inspectors have been asked to attend.
The Supreme Court has directed the federal quality controllers of medicines to develop a comprehensive policy to check trade in spurious drugs.
In a suo motu action, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had ordered the federal health secretary to convene a meeting of all provincial secretaries of health and chalk out a proper guideline to discourage flow of spurious drugs. Directions were also issued to activate the state machinery but without harassing pharmaceutical companies.
Concern was also expressed by the court on the easy availability of Unani Ayurvedic and homoepathic medicines even in general stores without any law.
The Supreme Court had took up the matter on the complaint of Dr Shamsuz Zaman Soomro, accusing that “Ceftriaxone Sodium” was being produced by Robins Pharmaceuticals and Lyod Pharmaceuticals.
A specimen of batch No 130 of the product was also preserved by the complainant which he claimed, he bought for Rs70 against its original price of Rs495. Subsequently, a Quality Control report stated that it was a misbranded product but not spurious while the health ministry issued a show cause notice to two pharmaceutical companies.
The agenda of Monday’s inter-provincial meeting is to find ways for strict implementation of the Drug Act 1976 by streamlining and strengthening monitory mechanism to curb sale of spurious medicines in the market, the source said. Steps would also be suggested during the meeting to further scale up export demand of locally-manufactured pharmaceutical products.
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