LAHORE: This is with reference to a report in your newspaper of November 20 titled “Produce cheap injections immediately, orders PAC”. In it the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly has directed that inexpensive interferon injection for the treatment of hepatitis C be introduced in the market within the next two months. I am a social worker who is actively engaged in holding free medical camps for hepatitis patients and am well aware of the problems of patients. It has been rightly alleged in the report that multinational pharmaceutical companies and officials of the federal health ministry were behind this process of stalling the production and marketing of inexpensive injections.
Ministry officials ensure that generic drugs are not sold and that expensive drugs can have a monopoly in the market. This, in turn, means that patients who need to buy the medicines end up paying far more than they would if cheaper generic drugs were available. The clear beneficiaries are the pharmaceutical firms and some officials in the ministry of health must be working to allow them to benefit in this manner. Recently, in a landmark decision, the federal government reduced prices of 92 pharmaceutical products and issued the necessary notification on July 13, 2012. The price of one brand of interferon injections manufactured by a well-known pharmaceutical company was to be reduced from Rs13,000 to Rs6,500 but it continues to be sold at the higher price.
The Supreme Court needs to take notice of this and come to the rescue of millions of poor patients who could all benefit if cheaper generic drugs were available.
Mian Aftab Ahmed
Published in The Express Tribune, November 27th, 2012.
