Last week, fatalities reached a total of 35 in Gujranwala as a result of a toxic cough syrup consumed by the victims. Earlier in the year, over a 100 patients died in Lahore after using substandard medicines – and before that, the dengue virus spread havoc in the province.
Defending the provincial government’s role, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader and Punjab government spokesperson Senator Pervez Rashid said, “It is not the inefficiency of the provincial government, but it is the fault of the victims, who misused the syrup”. Rashid said that so far, investigation has proved that the syrup was not poisonous.
“Everything has a side effect if it is used in a way that’s contradictory to instructions,” Rashid told The Express Tribune. The spokesperson’s stance, however, was contrary to the claim of Adviser to the Punjab Chief Minister on Health Affairs Salman Rafiq, who stated that the poisonous effect was the result of the presence of substandard raw materials in the syrup.
Rashid did, on the other hand, admit that the matter was still being probed in order to establish who the culprits were. “An investigation is under way and action will be taken against the pharmaceutical company if found guilty,” he assured. The PML-N leader said that the provincial government had taken action against such companies in the past, as cases pertaining to previous such incidents have been taken up in courts, where the government is actively pursuing them.
Rashid added that the provincial government successfully overcame the Dengue epidemic within a year, saying that this was unheard of anywhere else. “We received appreciation from across the globe for controlling the lethal dengue virus within a short span of time,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 31st, 2012.
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