The factories of China’s Guangzhou province take orders to produce any counterfeit medicine if samples of costly medicine of different countries are shown to them. The counterfeit medicine then is imported to the country in the name of mobile phone and electric machinery. The medicine is packaged inside the country and distributed in market.
This was known from the confession of the members of a gang of counterfeit and adulterant medicines made at the court. The counterfeit and unapproved medicines are openly sold at the market, putting the lives of patients at stake.
Businessmen at the capital’s pharmacies resort to a strategy in selling such counterfeit medicines. They don’t keep the medicines at counter. They bring the medicine from outside if asked by customer.
Mitford is the country’s biggest wholesale medicine market. This correspondent visited the market Monday noon in guise of a buyer, taking samples of medicine produced in Egypt and India; and seized by law enforcers at different times.
Among the medicines, one was Vastarel MR, made in Egypt. Seeing the packet of the medicine, a compounder of Mitford’s Khalil Medical Hall told this correspondent to wait sometime and, after 6/7 minutes, produced a strap of the medicine before him, containing 10 tablets. The salesman demanded Tk 1200 for one strap of medicine.
Mentionable, the same group of medicine is produced in Bangladesh also.
The price of a strap of Vastarel tablet, produced by SKF and containing 30 tablets, is sold at Tk 270 in the market, said a salesman at Mitford.
Mentionable, the issue of counterfeit foreign medicine came to light after the Criminal Investigation Department of Police detained three persons on December 28 last for alleged involvement in producing and distributing adulterant medicines. After grilling them, two more alleged accomplices were also arrested. A case was filed with Kotwali thana in this regard.
Sub-inspector AKM Mainuddin, investigation officer of the case, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Four of the arrestees made the confessional statement before the court. They told the court that they used to bring the different counterfeit medicine from China’s Guangzhou province, and package them inside the country to distribute to different pharmacies in and outside the capital.
Meanwhile, Dhaka Shishu Hospital’s Director Professor Abdul Aziz said, “Many patients have been affected taking counterfeit medicines. Counterfeit and adulterant medicines heighten the risk of kidney-related diseases.”