Crackdown on fake drugs

A fine of Rs25 million and jail up to 10 years for producing spurious medicines 

RAWALPINDI: Spurious drugs manufactured in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) are eventually finding their way to the rest of the country.

Those involved in this trade pick up medicines which are short in the market and produce fake ones for public consumption, an official of the Drug Regulatory Authority Rawalpindi stated.

The authority of Punjab in collaboration with the Government of KP recently raided a home in Peshawar and recovered spurious medicines in bulk quantities. The authorities concerned in Punjab on a tip-off took the lead in this operation which eventually led to the accused being involved in the heinous crime. Legal proceedings have been started against the culprits in KP. The accused in the case were manufacturing a spurious medicine used in giving anaesthesia to patients.

Drug inspectors of every district after initiating a case forward it to the drug testing laboratory. Afterwards, the concerned district quality control board decides whether to issue just a warning to the accused party or to send the case to the Drug Court.

In the Rawalpindi division, there is a single drug court which is headed by the Session Judge as the chairman along with two members including a pharmacist and a general physician. The drug court may award fines and imprisonment of the accused in such cases. Procedurally, the drug inspector may take a sample of some medicines and forward it to the drug testing laboratory. Under the law, a drug inspector cannot impose a fine.

Recently, a team of the Drug Control Authority and the Health Department conducted a joint raid in the Rawat area of Rawalpindi where they found a factory manufacturing medicines without a valid registration.

This factory was manufacturing five medicines used for the treatment of animals. The factory was straightaway sealed by the officials concerned.

The factory in question also didn’t have the technical staff and quality controls for the past one year. The case was registered against the owner of the factory and forwarded to the Quality Control Board for further action.

Meanwhile, Deputy Drug Controller Naveed Anwar along with some other officials conducted a raid at a private hospital on Peshawar Road and confiscated stocks of medicines which were unregistered. The medicine in question was not registered in DRAP. According to initial reports, a company in Karachi had illegally imported and supplied it to a private hospital.

While talking to Bol News, Deputy Drug Controller Anwar said that his department had been proactively pursuing the cases of illegal, unregistered and spurious medicine to nab the criminal involved in this crime. Anwar said, “There are 120 such cases in Rawalpindi District which are being heard and 75 of these cases are being heard in the drug court of Rawalpindi Division. There are 37 cases in which I am pursuing the matters as deputy drug controller which pertain to legal action against unlawful activities related with the medicines.”

According to him, a fine of Rs830,000 was imposed by the court in March while a Rs10 million fine was imposed on the accused parties by the court in September this year.

He said the persons involved in spurious medicines generally select expensive medicines. These persons generally have an eye on the trends of the medicine market and manufacture spurious medicines accordingly, he added.

He said there are no reports of factories or outlets which are manufacturing these spurious medicines in Punjab. On the other hand, there have been cases of manufacturing spurious medicines in KP.

According to Anwar if manufacturing spurious medicines is established in a court of law then it may impose a maximum fine up to the tune of Rs.25 million besides awarding punishment from three years to 10 years. He said there are also cases of selling Viagra which is an unregistered medicine in Pakistan and selling and marketing it is a crime over here recently a case of selling Viagra is under investigation in Gujar Khan.

Meanwhile Secretary District Quality Board, Talib Hussain informed this scribe that for the comfort of chemists and pharmacists the issuance of drug sale licenses online has been made functional.

He said this digital online drug license facility would eliminate the role of middlemen and the mafia.

He said the chemists can approach him for any guidance in this respect if they face any problem in using an online computer system for this purpose.