Pakistan is the country where people lose their lives due to criminal negligence of the government and its machinery is seemingly inefficient and lethargic to play its due role to protect public lives and property. Deadly incidents are being reported increasingly in the last few days in which many people died after consuming medicines prescribed by doctors. This happened due to toxic elements blended in the medicines but there is no such government authority or agency which performs its role to control the spread of counterfeit and toxic medicines in the market. The recent incident in Punjab, in which 50 people were killed due to deadly cough syrup Tyno, has posed a question mark on the efficiency of Drug Regulatory Authority (DRA) which has the mandate to supervise all operations of drug producers and dealers in the country.
But apparently, it has never played its role to supervise the operations of drug producers and dealers in the country that cost lives of innocent people. Are not the people with authority responsible equally along with those who imported such chemicals to prepare toxic medicines?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reportedly found toxic ‘levomethorphan’ in the raw material imported from an Indian manufacturer Kenduskar used in cough syrups. According to its finding, the raw material used in the cough syrups Tyno and Dextromethorphan includes 22 percent and 11 percent “lethal” levomethorphan content respectively. If cough syrups have been prepared with the toxic elements, then there are definite possibilities that more medicines contain such poisonous elements that cost lives of many innocence people in different parts of the country.
The government and judiciary should take action to stop the spread of toxic medicine in the local market and appoint honest and professional officials in the DRA that perform their duties efficiently in the sensitive nature of this business. The government should empower DRA and take all stakeholders, including drug manufacturers and importers of medicine, onboard to avoid such deadly incidents in the country again.
