LAHORE: Members of the opposition in Punjab Assembly were unimpressed on Thursday as the parliamentary health secretary briefed them on the free medicine case, which has so far killed over 100 people.
“The Punjab Institute of Cardiology caters to as many as 600,000 people annually. Of these, 50,000 people are registered for free medicines for various cardiac diseases,” Dr Saeed Elahi, parliamentary health secretary, said. “The substandard medicines were distributed to 28,000 patients and 450 of them were affected. One hundred patients have died while 222 are undergoing treatment and 22 of them are in critical condition. However, those in serious condition are not responding to medicines.”
Dr Elahi said that the PIC keeps data of the eight divisions of Punjab that it supplies to, according to which 75% of affected patients are from Lahore. He said that PIC staff will also be interrogated by the chairman of the chief minister’s inspection team.
Explaining the procurement process at the PIC, he said that the institute purchases medicines from the company which bid the lowest rate. The medicines were distributed on December 15, 2011, and up till the first week of January, the government was unaware of the deaths caused by drug reactions.
“It was in the first week when patients thronged hospitals, complaining of bleeding from various areas of the body. A preliminary investigation revealed that almost all patients were using cardiac medicines issued by the PIC in December,” he said.
Further investigation showed that these patients suffered bone marrow suppression, which led to a low blood count and severe bleeding. “Alarmed by the situation, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif constituted various probe committees, which found that most patients were using one or more of the following five medicines: Cardiovastation, Concont, Isotab, Solprin and Atenolol,” Dr Elahi said.
Government response
Elahi said that the government had constituted eight committees to deal with the issue and sought to assure the house that the government had devised a multipronged strategy to counter the problem at the initial stage.
Detailing government response, he said that the first response was to provide free medical care to affected patients at all teaching hospitals. Separate counters have been established at these hospitals’ emergency departments. Simultaneously, he said, suspected drugs are being collected from patients through the local administration, health authorities and police. Drug inspectors are retrieving medicines from markets, he said.
Secondly, he said, samples of suspected drugs have been sent for analysis and investigation to domestic and foreign laboratories. In Pakistan, samples have been sent to the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, while one man has gone to a lab in London and is expecting a report in 48 hours. Samples have also been dispatched to labs in Belgium and the US.
He said that hospitals have been issued clinical management guidelines for treating these patients and senior professors have been deputed to monitor their implementation.
About legal action, he said that an FIR, under Section 322 of the Pakistan Penal Code, has been lodged at the Shadman Police Station and a team of prosecution, law, health and police officials is investigating the case.
Talking about compensation, he said that the provincial government has announced compensation of Rs0.5 million to the heirs of those who died and Rs200,000 for patients still in hospitals. Rs30,000 have so far been disbursed to admitted patients, he said.
Opposition response
MPA Javed Gujjar, from the Pakistan Peoples Party, said that responsibility lies with those factories which manufacture the medicine, not the five companies that only produce a component of the drugs. He said that the issue should be taken up by the federal government as foreign companies had sent the ingredients to local companies which mixed them.
MPA Mohsin Leghari, from the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, criticised the PIC’s purchasing mechanism and said that the companies had sold medicines across the country hence drugs should not just be retrieved from the PIC.
PML-N MPA Asghar Monda demanded that an FIR be lodged under Section 302 instead of 322, as the latter allows payment of a Diyat.
Responding to the criticism, Dr Elahi said that the federal government has issued licenses to some companies, which import raw materials from China and Dubai and 15 committee members are analysing this raw material. He said that the federal government specifies the prices of medicines.

The session was then adjourned till Friday.

FIA, Punjab government to investigate fake medicines case: Malik
LAHORE / ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Punjab Government would jointly investigate the fake drugs case, which have claimed lives of several innocent people in Punjab, the Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Thursday.
Malik said that six pharmaceutical companies were allegedly involved in the spurious drugs case, out of which CEOs of three of hte companies namely Muhammad Waseem Chaudhry, Chaudhry Nadir Khan and Dr Muhammad Tahir Azam had been arrested.
The interior minister added that FIA Lahore Drug Inspectors conducted raids on three pharmaceutical companies including Pharma Wise Laboratories, Al Falah Pharma (Pvt) and Mega Pharmaceutical Limited in Lahore and seized drugs Alfagril, Solprin and Carovatin from their stores.
Malik informed that all relevant record pertaining to procurement of raw material used in manufacturing of the drugs was also taken in possession and was being analysed.
“Al Falah purchased inactive raw material from local market but failed to produce any evidence regarding the procurement,” Malik added.
“The Drug Formulation Licence of the company had expired in April 2011 and the company had failed to provide any validation of its licence,” Malik further revealed
He said preliminary investigations had disclosed that Pharma Wise was procuring the active and inactive raw material from local market against the Drug Act.
“But the company is unable to provide particulars of manufacturers of the raw material and its specification along with a drug analysis report,” Malik said.
He further said that the third company Mega Pharmaceutical was also involved in purchasing inactive raw material from local market against the law.
The minister said these companies had supplied the alleged spurious drugs to Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC), which paid their bills after receiving test reports from Drug Testing Laboratory, Lahore, adding “the relevant testing reports have been requisitioned from the laboratory.”
He said the samples of spurious drugs have been sent to the Central Drug Testing Laboratory Karachi for independent reports through Federal Drug Inspectors.
Malik said that post-mortem of one of the victims of the fake drugs could be done, if required.
Petition in LHC
The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday issued notices to Secretary Health Punjab, DG FIA and Inspector General Punjab police for January 30, in a petition seeking judicial inquiry into the deaths of cardiac patients due to the use of adulterated medicines provided by PIC.
Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique, the petitioner, stated in his petition that many patients had died and others were in critical condition after consuming contaminated medicines.
He stated that it was a case of sheer negligence on the part of the PIC administration, for which they should be held accountable.
Siddique stated that the federal and provincial health departments had failed to take action against the responsible persons.

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