KARACHI: The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has once again raised alarm over the severe shortage of essential paediatric tuberculosis (TB) as well as cancer medications, warning that the humanitarian crisis is getting worse with each passing day, while calling for immediate intervention. “The situation is still critical.

In case of tuberculosis, there is a serious risk for children developing drug-resistant disease and spreading it to other family members,” said Dr Abdul Ghafoor Shoro representing the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA).

“Seventy per cent of the patients report at private practitioners who are unable to meet needs of their patients because these drugs are not being supplied by the National TB programme. A similar situation prevails at the public sector hospitals,” he added.

According to the PMA representative, many “disappeared” medicines following pharmaceutical deregulation in late 2024 have returned to production. However, the paediatric formulations — specifically designed for children — remain in a state of critical shortage due to ongoing procurement and distribution failures within the national TB programme and the Common Management Union of the federal health ministry.

About cancer drugs, Dr Shoro regretted that thousands of patients were caught between the agony of a terminal illness and the impossibility of accessing legal, affordable treatment. “Cancer patients are being forced to rely on smuggled, unregulated and potentially counterfeit drugs to survive. This is unacceptable in a country with a structured healthcare regulatory framework. This shortage undermines the efforts of oncologists and compromises the safety of patients who are forced to use medicines that have no quality assurance or cold-chain monitoring,” he said.

He emphasised that the scarcity of these modern therapies was a direct result of institutional negligence and a lack of proactive planning by the relevant authorities. On behalf of the association, he demanded the crisis of drugs’ shortage must be addressed at the highest governmental forums, including the Ministry of National Health Services and the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) to ensure the immediate restoration of the supply chain for TB and oncology medicines.

“The institutions and officials responsible for this shortage whether through regulatory delays, import hurdles, or administrative incompetence must be held strictly accountable. A transparent inquiry should be launched to determine why these life-saving drugs are unavailable through legal channels.”

He urged the government to immediately import modern cancer therapies and provide subsidies to ensure these treatments are accessible to the common man. While ensuring legal supply, he said, the government must also take stern action against those exploiting this crisis by selling smuggled drugs at exorbitant prices.

In her response to shortage of paediatric TB drugs, Dr Samreen Ashraf Qureshi, Additional Director of the TB Control Programme, Sindh, explained that the supply of these medicines from the National TB programme had been delayed due to the “geopolitical” situation. The programme received the medicine supplies from foreign donors. “But, now we have got the medicines and the distribution process across the province will be completed this week. Even earlier, I was closely monitoring the situation and can say with confidence that there might have been shortage at stores but there was no shortage at health facilities,” she insisted, adding that these drugs were no longer stock out in Karachi.

Chief Executive Officer Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan Dr Ubaidullah Malik was not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2026