Over 50,000 raids conducted against spurious, substandard drugs last year.

Byline: Ikram Junaidi

ISLAMABAD -- During the first 11 months of last year, Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan carried out over 50,000 inspections and raids to stamp out the business of spurious and substandard drugs.

The raids were conducted on the direction of National Task Force (NTF) on Eradication of Spurious and Substandard Drugs.

The NTF, headed by Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza, was established to get the World Health Organisation's Listed Authorities (WLA) permission to export medicines across the globe.

'A team of World Health Organisation also visited Pakistan a month ago and expressed satisfaction over the efforts of Drap for manufacturing of quality drugs and eradication of substandard ones,' Drap Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Asim Rauf told Dawn.

According to the report of the NTF, from January to November 2019, Drap carried out overall 51,194 inspections and detected 7,135 violations of Drap Act 2012.

The move was aimed at getting WHO's listed authorities permission to export medicines

Document shows that 587 cases of unregistered drugs sale were registered, 1,710 cases of sale of drugs without warranty / false warranty, 1,895 cases of sale of drugs without drug sale licence, 830 cases of sale of drugs without qualified person and 390 cases of sale of expired drugs were registered.

It shows that 222 cases of sale of misbranded drugs, 11 cases of sale of counterfeit drugs, 513 cases of unsatisfactory storage conditions, 778 cases of sale of controlled drugs without sale purchase records, 119 cases of sale of drugs labelled 'Not for Sale' and 80 cases of illegal advertisement were registered.

Another document shows that in November 2019 as many as 54 sites were inspected in Islamabad, 10 cases were registered over sale of drugs without qualified persons, four cases were registered over unsatisfactory storage conditions, two cases of sale of unregistered drugs and one case of sale of counterfeit drugs was registered.

At 20 places seizure of stock was ordered and sampling was done for test/analysis at 2 sites.

Dr Rauf, who is also member of the NTF, said there was general perception about Pakistan...