LAHORE – Various essential and lifesaving medicines have disappeared from the market, putting the health and even the lives of patients at risk.
These essential drugs are not available at the wholesale medicine markets and medical stores, including outlets of leading chain stores in Lahore and other cities in the country.
As per some estimates, almost more than 50 per cent of the drugs on WHO’s list of essential medicines are unavailable or extremely rare in the market.
Essential drugs like Metronidazole Tablet, Entamizole Tablet, Quinine bi Sulphate Tablet, Chloroquine Tablet, Tegral Tablet, Humulin Injection, Vit K Injection, Narcotic Analgesics, Thyroxine Tablet, Codiene based Cough Syrups, Hydrocortisone Injection, Anti TB preparations, Novomix insulin, Heparin injections are not available in the market.
Stakeholders are giving various reasons for the unavailability of essential life-saving drugs. They shared that the government should adopt the prudent way forward of resolving the pressing issues in the larger interest of the ailing humanity.
“Devaluation of rupee, inflation, wages increase and high electricity/gas tariffs have led to unprecedented rise in the input cost. Unlike the other products, the prices of essential drugs are the same. Now there is little or no profit margin in a large number of essential medicines. In many cases, input cost is more than the retail price of medicines”, said Mian Khalid Misbah-ur-Rehman, Central Chairman of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA), adding that the heart, diabetes, cancer and epilepsy patients are suffering due to the unavailability of drugs.
Mian Khalid Misbah said that lower-than-reasonable prices lead to shortages, hoarding and sale of these medicines at higher rates.
“Patients are at risk of consuming unregistered, smuggled, potentially spurious and counterfeit drugs”, he said while suggesting timely revision in the prices of drugs to give a realistic profit margin to manufacturers, dealers, wholesalers and retailers. He added that “There is a need to implement the Drug Pricing Policy 2018 in letter and spirit for Essential Drugs to save the local pharmaceutical industry from impending disaster”. He added that the people at the helm of affairs need to urgently rationalise threshold of annual price revision of Essential Drugs to make it a permanent solution to this year-on-year challenge that leads to hardship for patients and manufacturers alike.
