KARACHI, Dec 15: The authorities are formulating laws to regularize the use of traditional Unani and homeopathic medicines.

This was stated by Federal Director-General Health Maj Gen (Retd) Muhammad Aslam while speaking as the chief guest at a two- day national seminar and workshop, organized by the federal health ministry in collaboration with the World Health Organization on Monday.

He said that the government was fully aware of the irrational use of unregistered and untested drugs. The authorities were taking steps to curb the sale of these drugs.

He suggested that the newspapers and magazines should discourage publication of material promoting untested and unregistered drugs.

Maj Gen Aslam claimed that the prices of medicines had not increased for the last two years due to some effective measures taken by the government. Even the prices of locally manufactured drugs had decreased during the last two years, he added.

He said that the government in collaboration with the WHO had been organizing events in order to create awareness about good clinical, storage and manufacturing practices among healthcare professionals, pharmacists and manufacturers.

From the next year, the authorities would carry out assessment studies to measure the impact of such events. In this connection, the chief drug controller would be asked to undertake studies to determine if such seminars and workshops had improved the prescription habits of the healthcare professionals.

Maj Gen Aslam said that the authorities had been approached by several individuals and organizations for permission to carry out clinical trials of medicines. These trials, he said, had advantages of bringing in investments and expertise, besides training local manpower. However, the clinical trials involving human lives needed to be handled with extra care. For this, he said that the guidelines laid down under the Good Clinical Practices for designing, conducting, recording and reporting clinical trials needed not only be properly understood but also implemented strictly.

Provincial Additional Secretary Dr Iqbal Dewan urged the young doctors to follow good clinical practices. He said that the economic conditions of patients should be taken into account while prescribing medicines to them.

Prof Masood Hameed, who was coordinator of the seminar, said that clinical trials for new drugs should be made mandatory so that local data could be made available for each drug, before it could be registered, marketed and prescribed in the country. He underscored the need to control the parallel marketing of herbal, Unani and homeopathic medicines.

Prof Hameed deplored the widespread dissemination of promotional material featuring such drugs. “Nobody knows which chemicals are included in such concoctions, which might be harmful for health instead of giving any benefit,” he said.

He said that storage of medicine was very critical, especially in rural areas, where drugs could be stored under adverse conditions. Even if such pharmacies were equipped with refrigerators, the power could be disturbed for hours, creating unfavourable conditions for medicines that needed to be stored at low temperatures, he suggested.

Later, Prof Zaigham Abbas spoke at length about the treatment modalities for hepatitis B and C. He said that drugs like Interferon, Lamivudine, Adefovir and Ribavirine were available locally, which could be used for the treatment of patients suffering from hepatitis B or C.

However, he added, indiscriminate use of these drugs should be avoided because results of wrong medication could be disastrous. He was of the view that monitoring of Hepatitis patients under treatment was also necessary.

Prof Abbas said that herbal and other indigenous medicines were available in markets, however, such drugs should not be used because they were not backed up by credible clinical trials.

Khurram Zaki Khan was of the view that no drug should be registered in the country without prior clinical trials.

He said the annual revenue of the pharmaceutical industry was about Rs55 billion. Only Rs58 million (0.11 per cent of the total revenue) was spent on clinical research annually. In India, he said, research worth more than $70 million was being undertaken every year.

In other words, he said, the profits made by pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan were primarily spent on marketing and promotional activities. This was so because the country lacked regulatory mechanisms to make the pharmaceutical companies undertake clinical trials on their medicines.