PESHAWAR: The caretaker government has approved a summary to establish Directorate of Drug Control and Pharmacy Services to deal with drug-related issues in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Caretaker Chief Minister retired Justice Dost Mohammad Khan, who in his capacity as chief justice of the Peshawar High Court then had heard several cases regarding drugs especially about the scandal of interferon injections, approved the summary on Wednesday. The summary was sent to the Chief Minister’s Secretariat from the office of the chief secretary a few months ago with a view to streamline the matters pertaining to medicines in the province.

Mohammad Ibrahim, deputy secretary (drug) at the health department, said that the caretaker chief minister not only approved the summary, but also wrote an additional note describing the move as very important and useful to ensure availability of effective medicines to the patients. He has also directed to speed up work to make the new directorate functional as soon as possible.

Caretaker CM says it will ensure availability of quality medicines

So far the drug-related issues were tackled by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), which was difficult for it to handle especially after amendments in the rules in Drug Act 1976 which enhanced responsibility of the drug section. The amended rules made in July last year were aimed at regulating the manufacturing, supply and distribution of medicines to ensure provision of quality drugs to the patients on the prescription of doctors.

The amended rules had also drawn protests from chemists and druggists across the province. Under those rules, the government wanted to enhance conviction rate in cases related to medicines for which the health department needed a full-fledged directorate on the pattern of Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap), which dealt with drug-related matters on the federal level.

Mr Ibrahim said that changes in the rules had been introduced after the Provincial Quality Control Board scrutinised cases lodged against sellers by drug inspectors in the courts and frequent directives from judges to file cases with solid proofs, because in most cases the accused were exonerated for lack of evidence.

He said that after amendments in rules the workload on DGHS had increased to the extent that effective management of services, including procurement of quality medicines, control on the deluge of spurious drugs in the market, inspection of pharmaceutical firms to ensure quality manufacturing, drug testing and provision of clinical services related to drugs on the hospitals level, was nearly impracticable for it.

Officials said that the new directorate would not only help minimize the burden on DGHS, but would also alleviate the conflict of interest sometimes created in case of drug control as the drug inspectors working under the same hierarchy had to direct own boss for rectification if there was violation of the drug Act.

They said that the pharmacy-related services would be improved as the skilled pharmacists, drug inspectors and drug analysts would work under the command of directors with similar knowledge, but with high qualifications and experience.

Mr Ibrahim said that it was the idea of former chief secretary Mohammad Azam Khan who had directed for preparation of a summary to establish a separate directorate. Officials said that a separate directorate was necessitated to streamline the drug market having unregistered imported and spurious drugs. He said that the directorate to work on the pattern of Drap was the first of its kind to be set up by any province in the country.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2018