“THE World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that close to $83 billion worth of counterfeit drugs are sold annually, and one in 10 medical products circulating in developing countries are substandard or fake.” Assuming Pakistan to be an average developing country, we too have at least 10 per cent of medicines that are spurious or counterfeit. Sadly, this number is reported to be over 50pc when it comes to life-saving drugs. Besides spurious and counterfeit medicines, there are many other harmful categories of drugs, such as substandard, expired, adulterated and wrongly labelled drugs, or those discovered to have unreported adverse reactions. The following paragraph, put together from recent newspaper reports, gives a brief glimpse into the underworld of spurious and substandard drugs.

Large quantities of counterfeit medicines were seized in Karachi. Culprits were arrested from Hyderabad, who revealed that they were getting the medicines from Multan. The spurious drug manufacturers of Multan revealed that they received the packaging from a printing press located in Lahore. The printing press revealed that it supplied packing material to counterfeit drug-making factories in Sargodha, Lahore, Karachi, Kasur, Peshawar, as well as the remote areas of Balochistan and KP. It would be fair to conclude that almost every city of Pakistan contributes its share in the toxic trade of counterfeit drugs.

The recent decision of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) to launch a mobile application is highly commendable. Purportedly, the ‘app’ will enable customers to scan the QR code of the medicine packaging and be immediately informed whether or not the purchased medicine is spurious. One sincerely hopes that this initiative will be different from numerous hollow campaigns launched earlier by many publicity-seeking departments under the façade of digital modernisation. Pakistan has an exceptional opportunity to transform this chronic drug crisis into meaningful revolutionary reforms aimed at achieving two major objectives: (a) eliminating the curse of spurious drugs; and (b) bringing Pakistan’s undocumented and informal economy closer to the digital fold.

It requires far greater skills to simplify a complex process than to complicate a simple one. It is suggested that the following highly simple and totally achievable steps be incorporated in the upcoming Drap app in order to achieve the two key objectives mentioned. Download and open the app on your mobile phone. Carry out one-time registration by logging in with your name, CNIC, phone number and your bank account number or any other wallet ID. The app confirms your successful registration and never asks you to sign up or sign in again. On the purchase of any medicine, open the app and directly scan the QR code printed on the packaging of the medicine.

Drap’s move to launch an app is commendable.

As soon as a customer scans the QR code on the medicine’s packaging, the app performs three functions. First, the customer receives a return message that states ‘this medicine is safe’, or ‘this medicine is counterfeit, do not purchase’, or ‘this medicine is expired, do not purchase’. The second thing that happens in parallel is the automatic communication of the complete QR code information to Drap. Thus, the Drap gets to know at the same time if the drug was spurious or genuine, and is informed of the associated details of manufacturer, batch number, expiry date, etc. This could enable Drap to immediately take the necessary administrative actions.

The third ex­traordinary and rewarding action that ki­­cks in concurrently is that 2pc of the price of the medicine mentioned on the QR code is automatically transferred to the registered bank account number of the customer. This incentive is not dependent on whether the medicine is genuine or fake. With the third action completed, the matter is closed by a message ‘scan completed and registered’. A built-in feature in the app would reject any subsequent attempt to scan the same QR code.

Such an amazingly simple measure and technologically low-hanging fruit could incentivise millions of citizens to be a part of a nationwide pharmaceutical authentication movement. Although 2pc is a small amount, it gives ordinary citizens a sense of purpose and partnership in a national counterfeit drug elimination programme. Most importantly, the app should require individuals to open bank accounts to receive the money. Pakistan could bring in millions of citizens from the informal to the formal economy by providing simple value-adding, hassle-free incentives. A task that ‘all the King’s horses and all the King’s men’ of FBR have failed to accomplish in the last seven decades.

The writer is an industrial engineer and a volunteer social activist.

naeemsadiq@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2025