The government, in the aftermath of the ephedrine scandal, has not released quotas for raw material necessary in the making of medicines that cure cough and cold, which will very likely result in a flood of counterfeit and spurious medicines, say representatives of pharmaceutical companies.
A statement, released here on Thursday, quoted Dr Mohammad Hadi, a pediatrician, as saying people mostly catch cough and cold in September and unavailability of locally manufactured quality medicines will lead to an epidemic, especially in northern areas.
The shortage of cough and cold medicines, according to Hadi, will surely result in a sudden rise in many counterfeit and spurious drugs. The medicines, which are short in the market, include Actifed including Actifed DM syrup, Actifed cold, Actifed P tablet; Sancos cough syrup and Erythrocin, a medicine for throat infection, he said.
Owing to delay in allocation of quota for narcotics ingredients, including ephedrine, some more important drugs are short in the market. Among these are Thyroxine tablet, Vancocin injection, Cardarone tablet, Inderal tablet, Benadryl syrup, Xanax tablet, Lexotanil tablet, Ativan tablet, Betnesol N drops, Betnesol tablet, Polyfax eye ointment, Hydryllin DM syrup and Arinac tablet.
In the last meeting on quota allocation, the Narcotics Control Board of Drug Regulatory Authority allocated only two multinational pharmaceutical companies 2,000 kg of ephedrine against their requirement of 29,000 kg, the statement said.
It said the allocation of ephedrine was just 25% of the pharmaceuticals’ requirement while one pharmaceutical company that makes cough and cold syrups has not been allocated ephedrine at all.
As per norms, the statement said, the allocation of narcotics ingredients takes place before the start of every year for timely production of drugs by the manufacturers and their timely availability. But this year, only 25% of the quota has been allocated and that too in the middle of the year, it said.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 7th, 2012.
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We simply can't do anything right!
This is another example of the duality of ephedrine, which can the best or the worst thing given by Nature to Man, as said by Manfred Hesse (Alkaloids, Nature's Curse or Blessing). Ephedrine could be the best medicine for cold, allergy and asthma but unfortunately also a precursor of methamphetamine. With a group of friends, mainly doctors, we have created a blog on this topic, here is our point of view on the legality of ephedrine: http://ephedrinewheretobuy.com/prescription-for-ephedrine-our-own-point-of-view