Drug Administration needs to undergo reforms
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Raihan M Chowdhury
Bangladesh's pharmaceutical export could get a boost once Drug Administration, the government authority to control manufacture and marketing and ensure quality of drugs, is brought under reforms.
The reforms will ensure capacity building and human resource development of the state-owned body, market operators said.
A strong Drug Administration is also needed to combat the rising menace of spurious, adulterated and smuggled medicines, they said.
They, however, noted that the government's lack of serious efforts to improve the Drug Administration had affected the export of drugs while giving scopes for unscrupulous manufacturers to produce and market substandard and counterfeit drugs.
"The government recently appointed a new chief executive of our office and we are hopeful that issues like recruiting manpower, increasing budget and strengthening our monitoring system will get preference this time, which remained ignored over the years," said an official of the Drug Administration.
The responsibility of monitoring a drug market worth Tk 33.67 billion that comprises 68,000 drug stores and 1,000 drug companies lies with only 178 officials of the Drug Administration. The acute shortage of manpower leaves two-thirds of the drug market unchecked, the official of the concerned authority said.
"It is not possible for only 26 drug superintendents to monitor the 64 districts at present as the volume of work has increased by almost seven times since the organisation's establishment in 1976," said a drug superintendent.
A Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (BAPI) source said: "Besides controlling quality of drugs, the Drug Administration is also the lone authorised body to control its prices, visit pharmaceutical companies, collect samples and test them and take action against traders of substandard, spurious and counterfeit drugs."
The BAPI president SM Shafiuzzaman said the government should form a taskforce comprising the officials of Drug Administration and law enforcing agencies to save the industry from the menace of spurious and smuggled drugs.
Because of the small manpower, the administration cannot even demand autonomy that might bring transparency and reduce government interference, the BAPI president added.
"It is our long-time demand that the drug administration should be empowered so that it can play a proactive role in the development of our pharmaceutical industry," said Ashfaque ur Rahman of Novartis (Bangladesh) Ltd.
The yearly transport allowance for a district superintendent of the administration for market monitoring is only Tk 2,000. But these superintendents do not have any magistracy power and security force like the Department of Narcotics.
"You cannot think about the magnitude of our insecurity when we enter the city's Mitford area to perform our routine check because of the area's notoriety," a Drug Administration source said adding that adequate security arrangement should be ensured.
According to available statistics, the local drug production has now increased to 96 per cent of the total demand from 32 per cent in 1982.
Deputy Director of Drug Administration Sultan Ahmed said it is not possible for it alone to do all the tasks including monitoring the market situation perfectly.
"The two drug testing laboratories in Dhaka and Chittagong also cannot work properly because of small manpower. Machines worth over Tk 100 million have remained idle at these laboratories for years due to lack of expert technicians," Sultan said.
The two laboratories can test 3,000 drug samples every year, but there are more than 14,000 brands of drugs in the market, he said.
Experts suggested training for the health and family planning directors at the Upazila level to get around 500 efficient officials to monitor the drug market in their respective areas. There is also a need to establish laboratories in the northern and southern parts of the country to test drugs.
They said laboratories at different public universities and the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) could be used to test drugs.
The process of making it a directorate started during the tenure of the immediate past government.
Bangladesh's pharmaceutical export could get a boost once Drug Administration, the government authority to control manufacture and marketing and ensure quality of drugs, is brought under reforms.
The reforms will ensure capacity building and human resource development of the state-owned body, market operators said.
A strong Drug Administration is also needed to combat the rising menace of spurious, adulterated and smuggled medicines, they said.
They, however, noted that the government's lack of serious efforts to improve the Drug Administration had affected the export of drugs while giving scopes for unscrupulous manufacturers to produce and market substandard and counterfeit drugs.
"The government recently appointed a new chief executive of our office and we are hopeful that issues like recruiting manpower, increasing budget and strengthening our monitoring system will get preference this time, which remained ignored over the years," said an official of the Drug Administration.
The responsibility of monitoring a drug market worth Tk 33.67 billion that comprises 68,000 drug stores and 1,000 drug companies lies with only 178 officials of the Drug Administration. The acute shortage of manpower leaves two-thirds of the drug market unchecked, the official of the concerned authority said.
"It is not possible for only 26 drug superintendents to monitor the 64 districts at present as the volume of work has increased by almost seven times since the organisation's establishment in 1976," said a drug superintendent.
A Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (BAPI) source said: "Besides controlling quality of drugs, the Drug Administration is also the lone authorised body to control its prices, visit pharmaceutical companies, collect samples and test them and take action against traders of substandard, spurious and counterfeit drugs."
The BAPI president SM Shafiuzzaman said the government should form a taskforce comprising the officials of Drug Administration and law enforcing agencies to save the industry from the menace of spurious and smuggled drugs.
Because of the small manpower, the administration cannot even demand autonomy that might bring transparency and reduce government interference, the BAPI president added.
"It is our long-time demand that the drug administration should be empowered so that it can play a proactive role in the development of our pharmaceutical industry," said Ashfaque ur Rahman of Novartis (Bangladesh) Ltd.
The yearly transport allowance for a district superintendent of the administration for market monitoring is only Tk 2,000. But these superintendents do not have any magistracy power and security force like the Department of Narcotics.
"You cannot think about the magnitude of our insecurity when we enter the city's Mitford area to perform our routine check because of the area's notoriety," a Drug Administration source said adding that adequate security arrangement should be ensured.
According to available statistics, the local drug production has now increased to 96 per cent of the total demand from 32 per cent in 1982.
Deputy Director of Drug Administration Sultan Ahmed said it is not possible for it alone to do all the tasks including monitoring the market situation perfectly.
"The two drug testing laboratories in Dhaka and Chittagong also cannot work properly because of small manpower. Machines worth over Tk 100 million have remained idle at these laboratories for years due to lack of expert technicians," Sultan said.
The two laboratories can test 3,000 drug samples every year, but there are more than 14,000 brands of drugs in the market, he said.
Experts suggested training for the health and family planning directors at the Upazila level to get around 500 efficient officials to monitor the drug market in their respective areas. There is also a need to establish laboratories in the northern and southern parts of the country to test drugs.
They said laboratories at different public universities and the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) could be used to test drugs.
The process of making it a directorate started during the tenure of the immediate past government.