PESHAWAR, July 16: NWFP Minister for Health and Social Welfare Dr Mehr Taj Roghani has warned those chemists and other people who are involved in the sale of unsterilized recycled syringes of strict action if they did not stop their illegal business.

She said that unsterilized syringes were the main cause of fast spread of deadly diseases in the province.

She was speaking at a two-day workshop on the selection of appropriate drugs at the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) on Monday.

The workshop, organised by Islamabad-based NGO Network for Consumer Protection, was attended by a large number of people. Besides others, the Chief Executive of HMC, Dr Mohammad Daud Khan, and Director-General of Health Services, Brig Dr Habibur Rehman, were also present.

Dr Roghani directed the officials concerned to initiate tough action against those chemists who were selling all types of drugs without genuine prescriptions of doctors. She asked the doctors community to make choices while prescribing drugs to patients so that the patients could get right substitute for the prescribed drugs.

The minister said she would pay surprise visits to drugs shops to check this illegal practice.

Dr Roghani, who is a serving paediatrician at the Khyber Teaching Hospital, said that she would visit the state-run healthcare institutions of the province and inspect the performance of the staff and cleanliness.

The minister expressed concern over the non-existence of diagnostic facilities for the patients suffering from viral ailments and stressed the need for establishing modern diagnostic laboratories in the province to help the patients.