Yes, medicine can be made from flour, semolina, sugar! This is what some would like us to believe. It's like the story where Jamal tells Kamal: "My uncle can jump off a 10-storey building!" When asked what happened next, Jamal replied, "What else? He died." Just as that tragic boast ends in death, so too does the manufacture of life-saving medicine with inedible and unsafe ingredients. In Bangladesh today, the spread of adulterated and counterfeit medicines has become a horrifying public health crisis.
A recent BBC Bangla report revealed a troubling resurgence of fake and substandard medicines in our pharmaceutical market, fuelled by political instability and administrative inaction. These harmful products are not limited to one area, they are being marketed from Dhaka to the most remote villages. Alarmingly, even doctors are finding it difficult to distinguish between the real and fake drug specimens.
Among the counterfeit medicines are vital drugs like albumin injection, gastric medicines, and antibiotics. According to a study in the journal Nature, 10 per cent of medicines sold in Dhaka and 20 per cent outside Dhaka are fake or adulterated. This is not a random problem; a sophisticated criminal network is operating secret factories in places like Keraniganj and Kamrangirchar. These fake drugs are also being distributed online and by courier, making the crisis even more uncontrollable.
This is not unique to Bangladesh. In 1937, over 100 people died in the U.S. after consuming a toxic solvent-laced medicine. In 2008, 84 Nigerian children died from tainted cough syrup. Similar tragedies have occurred in India, Pakistan, and The Gambia. Bangladesh also witnessed similar deaths from cough syrup. But unlike developed nations, where a single incident prompts swift state action, in Bangladesh, we shrug and say, "What can be done?"
The 2023 law prescribes life imprisonment for producing adulterated medicine, yet enforcement is nonexistent. Meanwhile, poor and uneducated citizens are drawn to cheaper medicines, unaware that they might be consuming plaster of Paris instead of plasma.
In an age when rockets head for Mars, Bangladesh remains trapped in the dangerous farce of flour tablets. If this continues, our future generations will be the tragic victims of this preventable disaster.
Ashikujaman Syed & Samia Jahan Shefa
syedashikujaman@yahoo.com
