60 Life saving medicines unavailable in pharmacies: Waqar Bhatti

Karachi: During an interview in a recent talk show, Mr Waqar Bhatti (investigative reporter and journalist ) stated that during the month of July, a total of 60 essential, life-saving medicines were unavailable in the market. 

He emphasised at a total of 70,000 medicines in total are registered to be available in Pakistan. However, the unavailability of these 60 medicines had caught the attention of the Prime Minister who had then, asked DRAP to submit a formal report regarding the names of these unavailable essential medicines. 

According to Mr Waqar Bhatti, the report claimed that about 25 to 35 life-saving medicines had been unavailable in the markets at separate instances in recent times.

During his interview, Mr Waqar agreed that this is true and that the unavailability of medicines is a serious problem. However, he also mentioned that the manufacturers may be narrating an exaggerated version of the situation.

Pakistan Medicine Manufacturers Association has said that while presently, 100 crucial medicines are unavailable, the primary cause of this is the rising prices. The cost of production of these medicines has increased substantially and manufacturers have thus, halted their production of these medicines. It was also predicted that if prompt action is not taken, the number of unavailable medicines may rise to 200.