Drugs ban: world media creating

KARACHI: Several countries imposed ban forthwith on the import of medicines from Pakistan after the report of London laboratory on Pakistani medicine, Isotab.

According to the sources of pharma industry the export of medicines had been increasing rapidly for the last five years leading to 35 percent annual growth of this industry. According to estimates, an investment of over $200 million has been made in the industry so far.

However, according to the London report the World Health Organisation (WHO) has banned Pakistan-manufactured medicine, Isotab, due to the recent deaths caused by medicine reaction in Punjab. Following the ban, the world media, especially Indian, has continuously started a hue and cry that the WHO imposed ban on import of all kinds of medicines from Pakistan despite the fact that the organisation has banned only one medicine. People are of the opinion that political conflicts have ruined the speedily growing pharma industry.

PPMA claims PIC deaths were caused by wrong drugs prescription

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Pharma Manufacturers Association (PPMA) has claimed that patients in the Pakistan Institute of Cardiology (PIC) did not die due to the usage of poisonous/substandard drugs, but died due to the wrong prescription of ‘blood thinning’ and lipid lowering medicines to them without taking their past medical history into consideration.

PPMA Chairman Asad Muhammad Khwaja said the pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan was exporting its medicines to 60 countries. He said the PPMA’s member pharmaceutical factories last year exported medicines worth $193 million to 10 Asian states including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, besides the Philippines and Far-East and African countries. He said 30 percent increase was being seen in the pharmaceutical industry in the current year.

Asad Khwaja said there were about 615 pharmaceutical factories in Pakistan out of which only 20 factories were foreign. He said the drugs that caused death of over 80 patients in the PIC were sent to our Central Drugs Testing Laboratory in Karachi where all these medicines were termed quality drugs.

32 die of cardiac drugs reaction in Lahore

LAHORE: At least 32 patients have died due to a reaction to cardiac drugs they had consumed earlier. The medicine was provided by the govt-run Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC).

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.

Six held with drugs, weapons

MULTAN: Police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested six accused, and seized drugs and illegal weapons.

The arrested accused Farhan, Ghulam Mustafa, Akbar, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Kabeer and Abdul Waheed and recovered one kilogram hashish and three pistols. (APP)