Health ministry sleeping over issues of substandard medicines

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Despite the third reminder by pharmacists, the health ministry is sleeping over the issue of the substandard and hazardous medicine that were bought for PIMS.
Well-placed sources informed on Tuesday that some types of the bought medicines that were analyzed by pharmacists in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) were declared as hazardous for health and were notified to the concerned departments and the federal health ministry.
But the ministry is sleeping over the issue so that the medicine tests after expiry could become invalid, said a doctor on condition of anonymity.
The officials sources said that 0.3 million tablets of Orthonil,17,000 tablets of Zonid 400 mg (batch number 293) and 65,000 tablets of Ambrofen 400 mg (batch numbers 2214, 1641, 1634, and 2120) were taken for analysis by the pharmacists and were send to the chairman quality control for laboratory tests but its tests’ result are still awaited for long.
The last reminder in this connection was send to the ministry on April 2, 2011. But the ministry is not responding to such reminders so that the medicine could expire and the corruption could be hidden, said an official.
The first reminder in this connection was dispatched on October 2, 2010 and the second on November 30, 2010.
“I don’t understand why a drug couldn’t be tested in months,” said a pharmacist requesting for not revealing his name.
Spokesman of the ministry Qazi Saboor was not available for recording his official version and its media coordinator Mazhar Nisar was not responding when Online tried to contact them for official version.