Withdraw sub-standard drugs from market

The High Court on Monday directed the government to withdraw drugs of 20 and antibiotics of 14 pharmaceuticals companies from the market as their medicines were sub-standard. The court also ordered the government to immediately stop production of these companies.

The Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) in a supplementary petition on July 31 notified the court that its order to stop these pharmaceuticals from producing and selling their substandard products was yet to be carried out.

On June 7, the HC had ordered the government to halt in seven days the production of medicines by 20 drug manufacturing companies charged with producing substandard medicines. The HC also ordered the government to stop 14 other companies from manufacturing antibiotics within the same deadline. It also issued a rule asking the government to explain within four weeks why its failure to cancel the licenses of 20 pharmaceutical companies and stop the antibiotics production of 14 other drug companies should not be declared illegal. The HRPB filed the petition with the HC saying that the licenses of the 20 drug companies should be cancelled as they have failed to produce standard medicines. On June 28, a national daily published a report on ‘sub-standard drugs of 34 companies flood the market’. Following this report, the High Court on Monday ordered the authorities concerned to stop marketing sub-standard medicines of 34 pharmaceutical companies and withdraw their products from the markets.

The inevitable element for the treatment is medicine. If those medicines are sub-standard, patient is sure to die. A few numbers of companies have been doing their illegal business with this very sensitive issue for long time. They are marketing their medicines not thinking about the general people. Citizens’ right to life has been affected due to the manufacturing and marketing of substandard medicines. But there are allegations that the administration is not taking effective steps in this regard. According to a statistics, medicines worth TK 17,000 crore are sold out every year in the country. Of them, 7-8 percent of medicines are sub-standard. In a separate survey, it is found that around 12,000 items of medicines are making their entries to the market. Sampling for only 3,500 items of medicines is tested with the existing manpower and instruments of the Drug Administration. Following this estimate, around 70 percent of the standard of the drugs are not verified. Selling of sub-standard medicines is very acute in rural areas but comparatively low in the capital due to the awareness. These medicines are sold out to the plain and simple villagers in the hope of high profit.

Treatment is the most important right among the fundamental rights of people. Proper treatment largely depends on physicians, instruments and proper medicines. So the government should take immediate and stern steps to stop manufacturing antibiotics and selling the sub-standard products.

risingbd/Dhaka/Aug 9, 2016/Shahed/Amirul