Sources told The News that medical experts had suspected five medicines — Solprin, Zafnol, Concont, Cardiovascin and Isotab — were provided to the cardiac patients registered with the PIC.
They said the patients taking the medicines were brought to hospitals with symptoms of a sudden drop in platelets and white blood cells and bleeding from different body parts. They said initially they took the symptoms as that of dengue.
More than 150 patients are reportedly under treatment in different city hospitals.
According to details collected from different city hospitals on Saturday, cardiac patients Khurshid Bibi, Ahmad Bashir, Gull Hussain, Ijaz, Nawaz, Aslam and Javed died in the Mayo Hospital while Ghulam Murtaza and Muhammad Amin breathed their last in the Services Hospital and Combined Military Hospital (CMH), Lahore.
Sources further said that the Punjab Health Department had ordered the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing and supplying the affected medicines to withdraw all stocks from hospitals and the market. They said the department had also ordered health EDOs and medical superintendents to immediately stop use of medicines and seal stocks and instructed drug inspectors to withdraw medicines from the registered patients.
However, it was learnt that no cardiac patient died of drug reaction at the PIC because its OPD patients were admitted to public and private hospitals close to their localities.
Meanwhile, Punjab Health Secretary Jehanzeb Khan has constituted a high-powered probe committee.
The committee is headed by Principal of the Allama Iqbal Medical College/Jinnah Hospital Prof Javed Akram while the other members of the committee are PIC Chief Executive Prof Muhammad Azhar, SIMS Principal Prof Faisal Masood, Prof Irshad Hussain (KEMU), Prof Farzana Chaudhry, Head of Pharmacy Department of University of Veterinary Sciences Lahore, Prof Bashir Ahmad, Head of Pharmacy Department Punjab University, Prof Farkhanda Kokab from Institute of Public Health, Addl Secretary Health (Technical) Dr Muhammad Anwar Janjua, Health Director General Health Dr Zahid Pervaiz, Prof Munazza Qayyum, DG Forensic Science Laboratory, Mufti Abdul Salam, Director, Drug Testing Laboratory, Prof Nosheen of Allama Iqbal Medical College, Dr Mubashir Attique, Chief Chemical Examiner, Prof Tahir Javed, Punjab University, Sheikh Akhtar Hussain, Deputy Director Cabinet Division and Ayyaz Ali, Director Pharmacy, DG Health Office.
The health secretary said that all batches of the medicines at the PIC had been withheld pending completion of inquiry, adding alternate arrangements are being made to provide safe medicines to the registered patients. He appealed to the cardiac patients registered with the PIC to immediately stop use of medicines acquired from the hospital.
Inquiry Committee chairman Prof Javed Akram told media that a Centralized Data Collection Centre had been established to collect data about such patients from all the city hospitals.
Moreover, he said that arrangements were being made to analyse local and foreign cardiac medicines used in the PIC, adding samples of affected drugs have been dispatched for examination to the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, Chemical Examiner, Punjab, Organic Chemistry Lab, Punjab University, Lahore, in Pakistan and drug testing laboratories in France and Belgium.
Prof Javed Akram said that a helpline 042-99200688 for the convenience of patients had been established.
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