Spurious drugs

The local drug producers have claimed that they meet 96 per cent of our total requirements. So it is not clear how drugs coming from abroad can have such a big market in Bangladesh.

The drug administration has to dig deep into the matter to know what is really happening. It has chalked out a plan to counter the spurious drug trade. To begin with, the imported drugs will be put under pre-customs inspection in the ports.

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The report says spurious drugs are coming from the neighbouring countries. The ports are the entry points where lack of inspection allows the huge load of drugs to reach their destinations. So the illegal business is thriving on poor enforcement of the law.

Matters have been made worse by the fact that thousands of unlicensed drug shops are operating in different places. The drug administration should look into such irregularities if it wants to add the element of transparency to marketing and sale of drugs.

The law appears to have become too brittle a thing in the drug business. Many drug shops in the city are selling spurious and unregistered drugs under the nose of the law enforcers. If that can happen in the city, it is not hard to imagine what is going on in other places.

Spurious drugs are as much a threat to public health as to the local drug manufacturing industry. The drug administration has chosen the right course of action, but it must now be seen that the action plan is implemented with a sense of urgency. The crackdown on the illegal trade must be vigorous and unrelenting.