The Minister for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination has dismissed the reports that life-saving drugs are not available in the markets or being sold on high prices in the black market.
In a reply to a question, the minister told National Assembly on Friday that it is not a fact that life-saving drugs are not available in the market.
However, he told, sometimes being a global phenomenon which involves supply chain disruption, quality defects, cost escalation, regulatory actions, discontinuation, quota allocation, etc. may cause any/some life-saving drugs to become temporarily unavailable.
The minister told that in case any drug becomes temporarily unavailable due to the factors mentioned above, a Committee on Availability of Life Saving Drugs (CALSD) deal with the issue on constant and regular basis. After investigation each case the efforts are made to resolve the issue.
In the recent past, the Committee has resolved 96 cases of shortage of medicines.
The House was also apprised that it is also not a fact that the life-saving drugs are being sold on high prices in the black market.
It was told that the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) through the national task force which comprises of all provincial drug inspectors takes coercive actions against any violator whosever sells the drugs at a price higher than the maximum retail price fixed by the federal government and such violators are apprehended as per the law.
Further to improve the availability, the DRAP has taken following measures:
- The DRAP issued the SRO 134(I)/2021 on February 02, 2021 to facilitate the hospitals/ institutes to import those medicines which are not registered or not available for their patients. These applications are being processed on fast track basis.
- The DRAP has been expeditiously processing the registration applications of those medicines which are reported short in the market. Recently, Heparins and Insulins preparations were given priority authorization for market.
The House was further told that the DRAP has revised the existing system to proactively deal with the risk of shortage of any drug in the market.
Recently, new standard operating procedures (SOPs)/guidelines were approved in the DRAP Authority meeting held on March 03, 2024 to deal possible shortage expected in the future.
