First National Medicine Policy within 6-8 months
ISLAMABAD: A committee has been set up to give Pakistan its first National Medicine Policy, Prime Minister Imran Khan's special assistant on health services, Dr Zafar Mirza, said Tuesday.
The National Medicine Policy's aim would be to reform the pharmaceutical sector to deal with issues related to access to medicine, drugs' safety and quality, regulatory and production issues, and human resource development.
“In the next six-to-eight months, we would have first properly developed national medicine policy in Pakistan," Dr Mirza said as he addressed an international conference on medicine safety here at a local hotel.
"Following the implementation of the new medicine policy, we would have a separate section dealing with safety and quality of drugs and to deal with adverse drug reactions and related issues,” he added.
The Pakistan Society of Health System Pharmacists (PSHP) and the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) organised the day-long international conference, wherein national and international experts addressed the attendees.
Among the experts were Professor Albert Figueras from Spain, DRAP Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Asim Rauf, PSHP President Abdul Latif Shaikh, and Umaimah Muzzamil.
As the event's chief guest, Dr Mirza said Pakistan had the highest number of per-capita injections annually — eight a year — but stressed that 90 percent of those were neither necessary nor a medical requirement for the patients.
“Unsafe injection practices are leading to deadly infectious diseases outbreaks as well as killing people or making them permanently disabled in Pakistan.
"In these circumstances, there is a strong need for having a strong system of pharmacovigilance or monitoring the effects and safety of medicines in Pakistan”, he said, urging pharmacists to play their role in educating the masses on injection safety as well as the adverse reactions of drugs.
The special assistant explained that he first came to know about the medicines' adverse reactions — sometimes lethal — during a visit to Japan in 1993 and observed that some 60-70 people had become permanently blind by using a medicine that was a household name in Pakistan at that time.
However, he emphasised that nobody in Pakistan was aware that that medicine was causing serious neurological issues to regular users.
“That drug was continued to be prescribed in Pakistan for next 30 years but as there was no system of pharmacovigilance or the monitoring of adverse drug reaction, perhaps it kept on making people blind and cause disability to them like in Japan,” he said.
Dr Mirza stated that there may be several other harmful reactions due to irrational use of medicines but due to the absence of an effective pharmacovigilance system, there was a serious lack of awareness.
Lauding the PSHP's efforts, Dr Mirza hoped that with its help, people would be made aware of the damages some medicines could cause if not used as per qualified medical professionals' advice.
Professor Figueras from the World Health Organization's (WHO) Pharmaceutical Collaborating Centre in Spain, said people in Pakistan should understand that "drugs are not candies" and should, therefore, not be taken without certified medical practitioners' advice.
“Self-medication is here in Pakistan and people are very fond of using high potency drugs on their own. They are needed to taught that except for a few over the counter drugs, majority of drugs can kill them, make them permanently disabled and ruin their lives”, he warned.
Professor Figueras further called for the adoption of a proper system to monitor drugs and their dispensation in Pakistan.
Shaikh, the PSHP president, said in this regard the safe use of medication was an integral part of an effective healthcare system to cure and prevent diseases.
Therefore, the assessment, understanding, and prevention of adverse effects or any other drug-related problem made the foundation of pharmacovigilance, which, he said, "globally and nationally has taken on urgency as it directly correlate patient safety".
Applauding a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the PSHP and the DRAP as a commendable example of public-private partnership, Shaikh noted that recent reports about cancer risks of "drugs like Valsartan and Ranitidine requires that we have such a system in place on the country”.
The PSHP, which has critical mass of health system pharmacists to help build capacity at the DRAP, would set a good example to promote competency and contribute towards patient safety, he added.
DRAP CEO Asif Rauf said this was the dawn of patients' safety as his organisation had embarked upon establishing a robust system of pharmacovigilance and recently published and distributed related guidelines to key stakeholders.