Ensuring quality medicines

Among the sectors which are showing signs of improvement after independence, pharmaceutical industry is one of them. The drugs and medicines produced in the country not only meet 97 per cent of the local demand, the same are also exported abroad. It is, we think, a great success of the pharmaceutical sector that our medicines are being exported to some 90 countries around the world. Nevertheless, there are some vital problems in this sector. According to a recent report in a vernacular daily at least 70 per cent of the medicines available in the market cannot be tested for quality for lack of manpower and equipment at the Department of Drug Administration. In addition, there has been a mushroom growth of pharmaceutical industries which manufacture drugs without licence and life-saving drugs are also available in grocery shops. These illegal industries sell sub-standard, date-expired and spurious medicines to unsuspecting people causing serious harm to public health. In short, medicine business is being carried out without transparency and accountability. According to a report, the wholesalers in connivance with some pharmaceutical companies are raising the price of medicines to maximise profit. A section of profit-mongers are trading with the life of ailing people under the very nose of the inactive Drug Administration. This should be immediately stopped by stern government measures to protect public health and save lives. Crackdown against dishonest medicine producers and dealers should be launched to check the sale of spurious, date-expired and adulterated medicines, so that people can buy quality medicines at affordable price. Lutfor Rahman Ghoraghat, Dinajpur E-mail : lutfor81@gmail.com