No yardstick set to check quality of imported drugs

By: Waqar Hamza | Published: July 04, 2009

However, the Health Ministry is of the opinion that China is a friend of Pakistan and there exists FTA between both the countries, therefore, it is not possible for them to stop the import of such life-saving drugs into Pakistan.
It was learnt that the Ministry is habitual to register drugs at the rate of Rs 15,000 and does not carry out any necessary investigation to make it sure whether the drug is worthwhile to use or not. On the other hand, China takes from Rs 0.7 to 0.8 million to register Pakistani drugs and even then they put a clause that the drug has to be tested in the government laboratories for 4 years to make it available for public there.
Interestingly, the Health Ministry is busy in making random registration at cheap rates without considering the fact that human lives are more precious than money, he added.
The Chinese and Indian products are very cheap due to the fact that industrialists there are provided with free land, free power and money to establish industries, but in Pakistan it is a dream to have free land for establishing any sort of industry.
The Pakistani drug market has potential of billions of rupees in which just 25% share is of imports but through the measures of the Health Ministry it has been cumbersome for Pakistan to cope with such issues of future threats by unregistered imported drugs being spread in the Pakistani market.

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