 |
Aug. 5: They come in all colours, shapes and sizes, packed in strips, which look exactly the same as the original, impossible even for experts to realise that the medicines are fake.
In a worst-case scenario, spurious and sub-standard drugs have flooded the city, putting the health and life of the people at grave risk.
The reason: with only two inspectors to cover the entire undivided Kamrup district — one of the official is even assigned a part of Darrang district — the drug inspection wing of the health department has failed miserably to contain the menace.
While some of the fake drugs contain harmless substances like sugar or flour added with binding materials, some contain chalk, harmful chemicals and additives. “These can cause serious damage to vital organs such as liver and kidney. The regular consumption of these medicines can even have carcinogenic effect on human cells,” a health expert said.
A majority of the spurious drugs are frequently-used medicines like antibiotics, painkillers, anti-viral medicines and intravenous fluids. To make matters worse, even used syringes are being recycled after they are collected from garbage dumps by ragpickers.
The two inspectors keep tabs on the 500-odd pharmacies and an equal number of distributors, apart from 12 drug manufacturing and six re-packing concerns in the city. A pharmacy-owner said the last time an inspector visited his shop was “nearly a year ago”.
Though assistant controller of drugs N. Bhattacharjee denied that the city was flooded with spurious drugs, the central executive member of the Centre for Medical and Sales Representative Union (Northeast region), Pranjit Kar, cited a WHO report, which said 20 per cent of the drugs sold in the country are fake.
The Assam Drug Dealers Association president D.P. Bajaj claimed that none of the members of the association are involved in the trade of spurious drugs.
Incidentally, the state directorate of health services does not have any citywise break-up of their data. Though real evidence is scanty and the authorities maintain that the percentage of spurious drugs is very small, industry people say otherwise.
“Spurious drugs of all kinds have flooded the city market as the penalty for the guilty is not fair considering the crime. Illegal producers and sellers can escape with a fine as little as Rs 10,000 or can get out on bail in no time as they can only be booked under Section 420 for fraud,” he said.
The multicrore rupee industry, which spread its tentacles in the city a few years back, now has Guwahati in a firm grip.
Sources in the drug industry said several distributors and stockists of fake drugs are operating out of Panbazar. They are also said to be supplying these fake and spurious medicines to other parts of the region.
While a bulk of the spurious drugs comes from outside, a small quantity is also manufactured locally in the city and Barpeta.
A medicine specialist, Brajendra Lahkar, admitted the problem, saying it was becoming a matter of concern for the doctors. “Sometimes even after administering the best drug for a particular disease, the response is poor. This is one proof that the medicine is fake,” Lahkar said.
“While faking the popular brands, the manufacturers sometimes skip some important steps to reduce costs which makes the cheap variety sub-standard,” he added.
Another major cause of concern is the rampant recycling of used syringes and cannula, used during injecting intravenous fluids, by unscrupulous traders.
Ragpickers collect the used syringes from garbage dumps and after washing, they are re-packed and duplicate labels stuck on them before pumping them back into the market.
This problem was also highlighted by a study of the Assam Science Society. The study pointed out that of the 32 city hospitals with indoor patient facility, only 15 health units have incinerators while four units use a common incinerator for disposing their infectious waste.
The rest of the hospitals and most of the pharmacies often discard the used syringes in garbage dumps from where they find their way back to the market, exposing the unsuspecting users to the threat of HIV and AIDS.
Additional superintendent of city police Bibekananda Das said the police’s “role on the matter is limited as we act only on the basis of inputs provided by the health department”.