Zubair Qureshi
The Senate Standing Committee on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHSR&C) on Friday asked the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) to submit a complete report in the next meeting whether life-saving drugs were allowed in the market or not.
The committee has also sought the criteria of monitoring and evaluating the quality of medicines and directed the regulatory body to give a comparison of the Pakistani medicines with those in other countries of the region like India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in terms of pricing, quality and availability.
MQM-P’s Senator Amir WaliUddinChishti was presiding over the meeting, The committee members also noticed absence of Prime Minister’s Coordinator on Health, DrMukhtar Ahmad, who, it was told had to attend to some important task therefore couldn’t make it.
Secretary health and Chairman of the DRAP however replied to the committee members’ questions and briefed them about the current situation.
Senator IrfanSiddiqui raised the issue of shortage of medicines and asked what the causes were behind that shortage. It may be noted that earlier this month anti-tetanus vaccine and rabies were reportedly missing from the markets across the country.
IrfanSiddiqui asked the DRAP official if medicines disappeared from the market because of the manufacturers’ desire for increasing prices.
AsimRauf, Chairman of DRAP told the senator that pricing was being placed under an independent mechanism. Soon a decision will be taken in this regard.
To a question, he said data of 48,000 medicines have been digitized and available online. Not only this, import and export of medicines and its entire mechanism have also been made available online, said MrAsimRauf adding DRAP targeted US$1 billion exports of medicines.
About quality control of medicines he said there would be no compromise on it. If the quality of medicines was up to the mark why people imported medicines asked IrfanSiddiqui. To this Chairman DRAP said it was more a matter of psychological satisfaction.
Pakistani medicines he assured fulfilled all the criteria of international standards and were accredited from the WHO. Not only WHO, global laboratories would also approve their authenticity, he claimed.
Even in my family we are using local medicines, he said. A simpleCalpol syrup, a local product, meets criteria of five countries, he further said. It was observed that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during his tenure as Chief Minister of Punjab in 2019 sent medicines from the province to the international labs to ensure their quality.
Senator MasroorAhsan, member of the committee, asked the DRAP official to submit a report on the quality of the medicines. He also sought a report on the polio vaccine. Lawmakers also referred to reports of various multinational companies leaving Pakistan.
To this it was told that they were not leaving rather they were merging. Another important issue taken up was formula milk and its quality.
DRAP officials said formula milk companies had moved petitions in the courts of Punjab and Sindh against regulatory oversight of DRAP but their petitions were turned down.
The committee members also expressed concerns over nutritious food-deficiency among the newborns and called for promoting breastfeeding instead of formula milk.
There should be strict criteria and oversight on formula milk companies.
The Senate panel’s chairman said UNICEF has also been approached on formula milk. On recommendation of Senator HumayunMohmand it was decided to invite Senator Dr. MeherTajRoghani for a feedback on this critical issue in the next meeting as she had worked extensively on this.
