'Medicines for 2nd phase of blood cancer treatment not registered by DRAP'

Head of Clinical Hematology and bone marrow transplantation department of DUHS, Dr Farrukh Ali Khan has said that the treatment of blood cancer (CML) by medicines instead of bone marrow transplantation is a remarkable achievement of medical science.

It is our great success that treatment facilities are available in Pakistan but it is very unfortunate aspect that medicines/drugs for the second phase of this treatment are not registered by Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP).

That's why on one hand imports of these drugs are not allowed while on the other hand they are very expensive. In this situation, importing these drugs is quite difficult. Drugs for the first phase of treatment are being provided by Sindh Government for free and hundreds of patients are benefiting from this.

He said this during a lecture in seminar of Dow dice health exhibition 2019. Dr Farrukh Ali Khan said we also have the ability to treat a complex type of blood cancer (CML) with medicines.

He said Dow University has the only active stem cell bank in Sindh, whereas the public sector, blood radiation facility is available only at Dow in the Sindh province. If blood cancer develops rapidly or if medication does not improve its treatment to save the patient's life, then only way to save patient's life is through bone marrow transplants.

In addition to complete treatment, the Dow University is a state-of-the-art public-sector institution with facilities for bone marrow and transplant in public sector in Sindh.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019