Night_Hawk
Siasat.pk - Blogger
Counterfeit medicines on the rise in the Pakistan
Pakistan is the country where people loss their lives due to criminal negligence of the government and its machinery seemingly inefficient and lethargic to play its due role to protect public lives and property.
The deadly incidents are being reported increasingly in the last few months in which people died of after consuming medicines prescribed by doctors. This happened due to toxic element blended in the medicines but there is no such government authority or agency which performs its role to control the spread of counterfeit and toxic medicines in the market.
There were repeated incident reported in the past that people on every other day lost their lives due to consumption of spurious medicine. Take the example of recent Punjab’s incident in which 50 killed due to intake of cough syrup.
DRAP did not take any promote action to raid such medicine producers who are working fearless under its very nose. But apparently, it has never played its role to supervise the operations of drug producers and dealers in the country that cost lives of innocent people. Did not people sitting in the authority are the responsible equally of those who imported such chemicals to prepare toxic medicines.
In the last six months, there were many cases reported in the media in which hundreds of people lost their lives due to consumption of toxic and spurious medicines, as per reports.
Dr. Tipu Sultan, Pro Vice Chancellor of Dow University of Health Sciences, said about 40 percent medicines, being sold in the country are counterfeit and Pakistan is among 13 countries of the world, where fake medicines are being manufactured in larger quantities. There is a severe punishment for keeping 100 grams of heroin, but no punishment is given on confiscation of entire truck loaded with spurious drugs, he added.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reportedly found toxic ‘levomethorphan’ in the raw material imported from an Indian manufacturer Kenduskar and used in cough syrups. According to its finding, the raw material used in the cough syrups Tyno and Dextromethorphan includes 22 percent and 11 percent “lethal” levomethorphan content respectively.
If cough syrups have been prepared with the toxic elements then there are definite possibilities that more medicines contain such poisonous elements that cost lives of many innocence people in different parts of the country.
The government and judiciary should take promote action to stop the spread of toxic medicine in the local market and appointed honest and professional officials in the DRA that perform their duties efficiently in the sensitive nature of business.
Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has been termed a nonfunctional government organization since its reformation as centralized body because it miserably failed to perform its due role to regulate pharmaceutical and healthcare industry including medicine pricing issue, registration of new products, vigilance of counterfeit and spurious medicine in the country, stakeholders of pharmaceutical and healthcare industry said.
Resulting, there is a shortage of medicines in many areas due to non-production of specific drugs by pharmaceuticals companies on the account of losses and unavailability of raw materials.
DRAP should take onboard the drug producers and raw material importers in order to ensure supplies of all sorts of medicines including live saving drugs in hospitals, dispensaries and medicines stores.
DRAP not only registers new drugs and sets its prices accordingly but it is a watchdog that restricts production of substandard and counterfeit drugs throughout the country and it punishes all criminals who are involved in playing with the lives of people through fake and toxic medicines.
Apparently there is no existence of any authority that regulates pharmaceutical industry since non-professionals people were hired in the authority who are reluctant to perform their duties, an official of pharmaceutical company said. Even they do not hold meetings of industry stakeholders on time to discuss various important issues and fix emerging problems of consumers and patients.
The government should empower DRA and take all stakeholders including drug manufacturers and importers of medicine onboard to avoid such deadly incidents in the country.
The controller of the Drug Control Authority Dr. Obaid said the annual budget of DRA is Rs. 500 million and about 50 employees are working. He said it is difficult to work with such a little number of staff and insufficient budget. He said quality medicines are being produced in Pakistan and their quality can be judged from the fact that about 80 percent of the diabetes patients use locally manufactured medicines.
Chief Executive should be appointed at Drugs Regulatory Authority and we would not accept the temporary system in the authority at any cost. He stressed the need for running the authority according to DRA laws, he said.
He deplored that many influential people are involved in fake medicines business, who have backing from political parties and government department people. He said the association has launched a campaign to create awareness among masses against the use of fake medicines.
Former PPMA Chairman Zahid Saeed said all chemists and druggists should be registered with the drug distributors. All chemists should be made bound to follow the terms and conditions for maintenance of quality of the drugs in their premises. A pharmacist should be available at every chemist's shop. Drug inspectors should be provide better job opportunities, he added.
The spurious and counterfeit medicines in Pakistan are a big problem and many deaths occur due to use of spurious drugs. Civil society, media, consumers and medicine manufacturers should join hands to stop the unchecked use of fake medicines in Pakistan.
There should be strict punishment on the selling of fake drugs and need for strict implementation of the drug laws. Besides, the government should make legislation regarding the issue which the previous Sindh Assembly did not pass important laws like Health Policy Bill, Thalassemia Bill, he added.
http://weeklypulse.org/details.aspx?contentID=3579&storylist=16
Pakistan is the country where people loss their lives due to criminal negligence of the government and its machinery seemingly inefficient and lethargic to play its due role to protect public lives and property.
The deadly incidents are being reported increasingly in the last few months in which people died of after consuming medicines prescribed by doctors. This happened due to toxic element blended in the medicines but there is no such government authority or agency which performs its role to control the spread of counterfeit and toxic medicines in the market.
There were repeated incident reported in the past that people on every other day lost their lives due to consumption of spurious medicine. Take the example of recent Punjab’s incident in which 50 killed due to intake of cough syrup.
DRAP did not take any promote action to raid such medicine producers who are working fearless under its very nose. But apparently, it has never played its role to supervise the operations of drug producers and dealers in the country that cost lives of innocent people. Did not people sitting in the authority are the responsible equally of those who imported such chemicals to prepare toxic medicines.
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In the last six months, there were many cases reported in the media in which hundreds of people lost their lives due to consumption of toxic and spurious medicines, as per reports.
Dr. Tipu Sultan, Pro Vice Chancellor of Dow University of Health Sciences, said about 40 percent medicines, being sold in the country are counterfeit and Pakistan is among 13 countries of the world, where fake medicines are being manufactured in larger quantities. There is a severe punishment for keeping 100 grams of heroin, but no punishment is given on confiscation of entire truck loaded with spurious drugs, he added.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reportedly found toxic ‘levomethorphan’ in the raw material imported from an Indian manufacturer Kenduskar and used in cough syrups. According to its finding, the raw material used in the cough syrups Tyno and Dextromethorphan includes 22 percent and 11 percent “lethal” levomethorphan content respectively.
If cough syrups have been prepared with the toxic elements then there are definite possibilities that more medicines contain such poisonous elements that cost lives of many innocence people in different parts of the country.
The government and judiciary should take promote action to stop the spread of toxic medicine in the local market and appointed honest and professional officials in the DRA that perform their duties efficiently in the sensitive nature of business.
Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has been termed a nonfunctional government organization since its reformation as centralized body because it miserably failed to perform its due role to regulate pharmaceutical and healthcare industry including medicine pricing issue, registration of new products, vigilance of counterfeit and spurious medicine in the country, stakeholders of pharmaceutical and healthcare industry said.
Resulting, there is a shortage of medicines in many areas due to non-production of specific drugs by pharmaceuticals companies on the account of losses and unavailability of raw materials.
DRAP should take onboard the drug producers and raw material importers in order to ensure supplies of all sorts of medicines including live saving drugs in hospitals, dispensaries and medicines stores.
DRAP not only registers new drugs and sets its prices accordingly but it is a watchdog that restricts production of substandard and counterfeit drugs throughout the country and it punishes all criminals who are involved in playing with the lives of people through fake and toxic medicines.
Apparently there is no existence of any authority that regulates pharmaceutical industry since non-professionals people were hired in the authority who are reluctant to perform their duties, an official of pharmaceutical company said. Even they do not hold meetings of industry stakeholders on time to discuss various important issues and fix emerging problems of consumers and patients.
The government should empower DRA and take all stakeholders including drug manufacturers and importers of medicine onboard to avoid such deadly incidents in the country.
The controller of the Drug Control Authority Dr. Obaid said the annual budget of DRA is Rs. 500 million and about 50 employees are working. He said it is difficult to work with such a little number of staff and insufficient budget. He said quality medicines are being produced in Pakistan and their quality can be judged from the fact that about 80 percent of the diabetes patients use locally manufactured medicines.
Chief Executive should be appointed at Drugs Regulatory Authority and we would not accept the temporary system in the authority at any cost. He stressed the need for running the authority according to DRA laws, he said.
He deplored that many influential people are involved in fake medicines business, who have backing from political parties and government department people. He said the association has launched a campaign to create awareness among masses against the use of fake medicines.
Former PPMA Chairman Zahid Saeed said all chemists and druggists should be registered with the drug distributors. All chemists should be made bound to follow the terms and conditions for maintenance of quality of the drugs in their premises. A pharmacist should be available at every chemist's shop. Drug inspectors should be provide better job opportunities, he added.
The spurious and counterfeit medicines in Pakistan are a big problem and many deaths occur due to use of spurious drugs. Civil society, media, consumers and medicine manufacturers should join hands to stop the unchecked use of fake medicines in Pakistan.
There should be strict punishment on the selling of fake drugs and need for strict implementation of the drug laws. Besides, the government should make legislation regarding the issue which the previous Sindh Assembly did not pass important laws like Health Policy Bill, Thalassemia Bill, he added.
http://weeklypulse.org/details.aspx?contentID=3579&storylist=16
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