ISLAMABAD: Before leaving the ministry, the outgoing caretaker health minister, Dr Nadeem Jan, made it mandatory for doctors to submit an affidavit stating that their foreign visits are not funded by pharmaceutical companies.

The decision is aimed at avoiding the possibility of a conflict of interest and to ensure that patients do not suffer due to an unholy alliance between health practitioners and pharmaceutical companies.

The circular issued by the health ministry, signed by Syed Hassan Mehmood and seen by Dawn, stated: “In the future, all requests of Ex-Pakistan leave forwarded to health ministry shall be accompanied by an affidavit by the concerned officers that their foreign visits are not for attending conferences/seminars and that the visit is not sponsored by any private company/donor etc.”

A senior health ministry official, who did not want to be named, said doctors receive benefits from pharmaceutical companies to market and prescribe their drugs.

“Doctors do get incentives, such as the renovation of their clinics, foreign visits and even cash. Such practices are eroding trust in the sacred profession, which in turn causes another problem: people have started self-medicating,” he said, adding that the situation is especially alarming when it comes to antibiotics, whose irrational use is becoming one of the leading causes of the development of drug-resistant bacteria.

Although data on antimicrobial resistance, as the phenomenon is known, is scant for Pakistan, scholarly articles on the subject point to the fact that the extensive use of antibiotics has “selected resistant strains, increasing the rate of fatal infectious diseases, and exerting an economic burden on society”.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2024