LAHORE, Dec 21: Federal Health Secretary Ejaz Rahim has said that around 100 officials in the health ministry have been sacked on corruption charges during the present government’s tenure.

Mr Rahim was talking to reporters after the inaugural session of the two-day national seminar and workshop on “Good Prescribing Practices, Good Clinical Practice, Rational Use of Drugs and Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting” organized by the ministry of health in collaboration with the World Health Organization at the King Edward Medical College on Friday.

Answering a question, Mr Rahim said that the federal government had launched a programme to upgrade district and tehsil headquarter hospitals, rural health centres and basic health units in 20 most populace districts of the country. He said 10 out of 20 selected districts were in the Punjab.

He said the upgradation work was being funded by the Asian Development Bank which had released $38 million. He said that some 43 other less populated districts had also been included in this project.

Mr Rahim said that the provincial health departments had also been asked to rationalize the postings of doctors in the rural areas.

Answering another question, Mr Rahim said that around 21,000 drugs were registered in Pakistan and it had no plan to curtail the list of registered medicines. He said the increased number of registered drugs created a competition in the market as only quality drug available at reasonable prices could survive. He said the health ministry had no function in the registration of the drugs as it was the prerogative of the Drug Registration Authority.