Shah Alam Nur :
Despite mobile court drives, the illegal business of making and selling adulterated and fake drug has been going on unabated across the country.
Over the last 11 months, more than 600 cases have been filed against various individuals and organisations by mobile courts under the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA). These cases have been filed on charges of preserving, storing and selling of fake, adulterated, expired, low quality and unapproved drugs.
On November 17, a mobile court in a drive fined Tk 60,000 to six drugstores for selling government medicines, physician samples, unapproved foreign medicines and harmful food supplement and fined a fake doctor Tk 50,000 at Shah Amanat Bridge and Bangla Bazar areas in Chittagong.
Some 350 companies and drug sellers have been fined over Tk 30 million during the last 11 months. A total of 98 individuals have been handed down various jail terms from 10 days to two years by the mobile courts.
Fake and adulterated drugs are being made in the capital, under the very nose of the drug administration.
During the drives, the DGDA mobile courts also recovered huge quantities of drugs marked green and red but these medicines were actually supplied to different government hospitals for being distributed free of cost to the patients.
Source said that a section of unscrupulous government employees and officials smuggle these free drugs out of the government hospitals.
Meanwhile, experts in health sector said that the activities of the drug administration have gained a lot of visible momentum in recent times.
They said that the DGDA has been playing a role in ensuring that people do not get cheated with sub-standard drugs
DGDA drug supervisor Saikat Kumar Dhar said many of these traders continue doing illegal business even after serving jail terms and paying fines.
He said for manufacturing and selling drugs of any kind, a company must secure a license from the DGDA, have the required mechanism for ensuring quality of the products and the required manpower and expertise.
He, however, claimed that the manufacturing and selling of low quality drugs have been curbed by certain extents over the last few years.
