Fake drugs detected

LAHORE: Accelerating a drive against spurious and substandard drugs, drug inspectors of the Health Department inspected 22,945 medical stores/pharmacies and collected 10,896 samples for laboratory analysis. Around 238 out of the total 10,896 samples were found substandard while 59 were spurious.

It was disclosed that during the current crackdown, 845 medical stores were sealed whereas, 2,258 challan were sent to Provincial as well as District Quality Control Board and 43 FIRs were also lodged. Expired medicines were also recovered from 193 medical stores.

The Health Department sent 1351 cases to drug courts and the courts imposed Rs 18,408,000 fine. It was also learnt that 131 cases were registered against illegal advertisement by quacks. The Health Department is also considering evolving a monitoring system to assess the performance of drug inspectors.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011