Keep taking the tablets

Pharmaceuticals are big business globally and no less in Pakistan where pharmacies are found everywhere

Pharmaceuticals are big business globally and no less in Pakistan where pharmacies large and small may be found everywhere. There has been recent focus on corrupt inspectors of the pharmacies in Punjab, and now a further concern has arisen and been explored by the Senate. There had been stories in circulation that there had been a shortage of medicines in the country over the last six months. Not so said the Minister of State for National Health Services. She was at pains to point out that with regard to the performance of the drug regulatory authority the government had ensured the availability, quality, and prices of medicines nationwide, adding that the introduction of medication barcodes was an further layer of quality control. The pharmaceutical manufacturers say that exports have increased, and that would not have happened unless Pakistani products conformed to the standards set by other nations.

Whilst the foregoing is encouraging the senators vented their concern at the sale of spurious medicines nationally, and that the trade was largely unchecked. One senator commented that some stents used in cardiac procedures were found to be fake. The numbers of procedures performed that involve the use of stents is unknown as an aggregated figure, but a hypothetical number in the tens of thousands annually is not unreasonable. If there are counterfeit or sub-standard stents in circulation, then lives are at risk.

Most of us require medication whether self-prescribed or ordered by a doctor. Most of us trust what we are sold over the counter of the pharmacy. Few check the packaging, the sell-by date or what is often a giveaway with fake medications — mistakes in the spelling on the packaging. Few would anyway recognise a spelling mistake especially if it were in English and a spurious medication could be innocently ingested. Whether it was innocently sold is the unanswered question, and there will be pharmacies that are corrupt. Check before you walk away from the counter.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2017.

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