While declaring more than 1,000 drugs registered after the devolution of Ministry of Health unlawful and illegal, the Senate Special Committee on Health Thursday asked the relevant department to cancel their registration. The special committee took strict notice of the matter said the federal government could not register any drug or do any legislation on health without the approval of provincial governments as health had become a provincial subject after the 18th Amendment. Senator Zahid Khan said how the federal government could register such a large number of drugs in the absence of a registration authority. Zahid Khan, while talking to Pakistan Today, said, “We raised this issue that all the working done in health sector, which is now a devolved subject, is illegal and unlawful. Therefore, all the drugs registered would be considered illegal licenses and considered spurious if are available in the market.”
“We suggested that the Drug Registration Authority (DRA) should be established soon to address the sensitive issue and the provinces should be given equal representation in DRA.” He said they asked the federal government to review and explain that in what capacity they had sustained four health-related programmes at the national level including Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), National AIDS Control Programme, National Tuberculoses Programme and National Malaria Control Programme. Members also recommended devolving these national health programmes to the provinces.
It is worth mentioning that after the 18th amendment when the health sector was devolved to province, there is no Drug Registration Authority but more than 1000 drugs were registered and given licenses illegally. Requesting anonymity, an official told Pakistan Today that the issue of establishment of DRA was still pending as the lobbying to get the control of this federal autonomous body was started right after the devolution process. He said the establishment of DRA was a unique opportunity to overhaul drug regulation in Pakistan and to plug existing loopholes in domains such as manufacturing, import and export, registration, licensing, monitoring, standardisation, pricing, quality control and easy availability of medicines throughout the country. But this opportunity now faced the threat of being worthless.
While giving example of India, he said India’s annual export of drugs run into billions of dollars as against only a few million by Pakistan, adding that drugs could be a potential export industry if issues like counterfeit medicines, irrational use, as well as quality and pricing issues were appropriately addressed. “This dream can become a reality only through the induction of competitive and experienced professionals who are selected in a transparent manner and who have the vision to steer the DRA,” he said.
