PESHAWAR: The amendment to rules in the drug law has helping the health department to regulate supply, sale and distribution of medicines in the province, according to officials.

They said that the amended rules in Drug Act 1976 were meant to regulate manufacturing, supply and distribution of medicines to ensure provision of quality drugs to the patients on prescription of doctors. However, the amended law has also drawn protests from chemists and druggists across the province.

Officials said that convictions in cases related to medicines were improved after the law was amended. Changes in the rules were introduced in July last year when the Provincial Quality Control Board scrutinised cases lodged against sellers by drug inspectors in the courts and frequent directives from judges to file cases with solid proofs, according to officials.

Official says summary being vetted to remove reservations of drug sellers

They said that the rules first framed in1982 had become obsolete and the department was unable to meet the challenges posed by increasing drug trade. “We have taken action against 20,000 chemists since July last year after the rules were changed,” Mohammad Ibrahim, the deputy secretary (drugs) of health department, told Dawn.

He said that they had 11,000 pharmacy graduates and as many those registered in pharmacy A under Pharmacy Council Act, 1976, who were entitled under the law to supervise drug stores. He said that pharmacies, retail medical stores and distribution points would display signboards of different colours and owners would show original registration to check the practice wherein more than one stores was being operated on the same registration.

The official said that markets were replete with unregistered expensive drugs. He said that an amino-depressant drug, smuggled from Iran, Afghanistan and India etc was sold at exorbitant price.

“Health department has agreed to remove reservations of drug sellers and a summary regarding three amendments to the rules is being vetted by the law department,” he said.

Mr Ibrahim said that 40 inspectors had been tasked to inspect medical stores in all districts including Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata). He said that the new rules would ensure availability of effective medicines.

He said that unregulated drug trade had increased as there were more than 90,000 pharmaceutical preparations in addition to unregistered smuggled drugs that might contain spurious and fake drugs.

“Only qualified people are allowed to run medical stores. There are specifications for medical store, pharmacy, distribution and wholesale outlets based on qualification of supervising persons,” said the official.

He said that the shops of chemists and druggists with qualified persons would get stock from registered manufacturers under the government’s check. He said that the mechanism of purchase from the makers or authorised agents by retailers and its further sale was regularised by virtue of the rules to get quality drugs.

The official said that manufacturers were restrained from selling drugs to any unlicenced outlet and supervision of stores by non-qualified people was prohibited.

The drug inspectors are liable to dispose of cases in specified timeframe and sellers will show proof of purchase,” he said.

Mr Ibrahim said the 2,000 pharmacy graduates were produced annually and government had simplified obtaining of licences with a view to encourage graduates to indulge in sale of drugs.

Physicians at the tertiary care hospitals say that they have noticed inefficacy in drugs, which have time-tested results in the past because of fake drugs. They say that unregulated market forces often create pseudo shortage of life-saving drugs to sell the commodities at higher prices and the life-time users are more affected.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2018