Islamabad: PIMS/Pharmax pharmacy sealed for selling counterfeit drugs

[Naveed Yaseen]

A counterfeit injection bought from the private medical store located within the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) here on Friday could have been administered to a female patient admitted in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital, had it not been for the vigilance of the unit’s in-charge.

The issue came to the fore during a press conference called by the PIMS administration to highlight the measures being taken by the hospital in connection with medical rehabilitation of internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The attendant of a patient named Najma Naheed stepped in to inform the media that he bought the antibiotic injection from Pharmax, the private medical store operating within the geographical boundary of PIMS, and gave it to the in-charge of the surgical ICU, Dr. Kamal Nasir, who suspected its quality.

Later on, the chairman of the Quality Control Board of the Ministry of Health Dr. Rashid, and Drug Inspector Shafiq Khan sealed the drug store, and took samples of the injection, which have been sent to a drug testing laboratory in Lahore for examination. The laboratory report is likely to be received in the next 48 hours.

Shafiq Khan said, on confirmation, an FIR will be lodged against the owner of the pharmacy as well as against any pharmaceutical company involved in manufacturing of spurious drugs. He said, samples of other medicines will also be collected to ascertain their quality.

Meanwhile, PIMS, which has no administrative control over Pharmax, has also directed its administration to refrain from opening the drug store till completion of investigation. The acting executive director of the hospital Dr. Altaf Hussain has issued a circular informing the heads of all departments about the development. Pharmax has twice been sealed in the past on complaints of overcharging, lodged by the hospital administration; however, its management succeeded in getting relief from the court.

“The hospital administration has already written a letter to the Ministry of Health to allow opening of more fair price drug stores within PIMS to end the monopoly of Pharmax, which has 140 branches in the country and is working since 1994 under a contractual arrangement with the government,” the hospital’s media spokesman Dr. Waseem Khwaja informed.

Earlier, Dr. Altaf told the media about the on-site preventive and curative interventions being made to provide relief to the IDPs. Most of the details pertained to the number of teams and doctors being sent, and the average number of patients being examined. He said, PIMS will soon establish a satellite hospital for IDPs at Pabbi.

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