KARACHI: An anti-spurious drugs body and a pharmaceutical watchdog on Monday recovered a huge quantity of medicines stolen from two major government hospitals in the city in a series of raids in wholesale medicines markets.

The medicines were supplied to major public-sector hospitals in the city and meant to be distributed free among the deserving patients but were “stolen” from there and finally found their way to the retail and wholesale markets, officials and sources said.

They said that raids were conducted by a team of the National Task Force against Spurious Drugs on various shops and warehouses in the Katchi Gali and Hussainabad areas and a huge quantity of medicines stolen from the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) as well as well as the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi were seized.

‘Sindh govt property’

“The National Task Force against Spurious Drugs today raided various shops and warehouses in the notorious Katchi Gali in district South as well as Hussainabad areas,” said Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) chief Asim Rauf.

“The teams seized huge quantity of medicines stolen from the Sindh government’s hospitals. The officials have also seized a large quantity of spurious drugs during these raids.

“During the raid on the Zeenat Extension in Katchi Gali, thousands of vials of injections, tablets and other medicines stolen from different public hospitals in Sindh were recovered and a large number of spurious drugs were also taken into custody, which were sent for lab analysis for investigation purposes,” he added.

“There were a large number of injectable and oral medicines, which were stamped with ‘Sindh government property; Sale Prohibited”, he said. “It indicates that these medicines were stolen from the public hospitals and sold to traders in retail and wholesale markets. It’s in fact a great success of the Drap officials, who have finally reached the culprits behind this nexus depriving deserving people of free medicines.”

He said that the action was taken after months-long surveillance and efforts of the regulatory body.

“I would appeal to the people to report any such crime [on] Drap’s toll-free number 0800-03727,” Mr Rauf said, assuring complete secrecy for those helping the authorities.

ACE to launch probe

Meanwhile, a Sindh government official suspected that some officials in the provincial drug administration and government’s central store in the I.I. Depot could be behind the racket that was stealing medicines from hospitals and selling them in markets across the country.

“Involvement of some drug inspectors cannot be ruled out as well,” he said. “Law enforcement agencies and the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) are being approached to launch a probe against them. There are also people in the stores of medical institutions as well as at the central medicine store who must be behind this crime,” he said.

On the other hand, Drap officials in Karachi disclosed that they had recovered medicines stolen from the NICVD and CHK, which included costly injections to give anaesthesia to patients as well as antibiotics, steroids and other medicines and added that drugs stolen from other healthcare facilities were also recovered during the raid.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2021