Staff Reporter :
The High Court (HC) on Thursday directed the government to take necessary steps to stop sale of antibiotic drugs without registered doctors’ prescriptions.
The court ordered the Director General (DG) of the Directorate of Drug Administration to issue a circular to this effect within two days of receiving the order.
The DG will issue the circular so that the Deputy Commissioner and the Civil Surgeon take steps to stop the sale of antibiotic drugs without registered doctors’ prescriptions.
The HC also issued a rule asking the authorities concerned of the government to explain as to why selling of antibiotics without prescriptions of registered doctors should not be declared illegal. Health Secretary, Public Administration Secretary, Director General of Department of Health Services and other respondents have to comply with the rule.
The HC Bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Razik-Al-Jalil passed the order and issued the rule after hearing a writ petition filed by SC lawyer Barrister Sayedul Haque Suman seeking necessary order on the issue.
Citing the petition, Sayedul Haque said, on many occasions antibiotic drugs are reportedly sold without doctors’ prescriptions, and the medicines do not work for patients due to excessive use.
Quoting a senior doctor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), the lawyer said in the petition, antimicrobial resistance superbug could be responsible for up to 80 percent deaths in the largest intensive care units of the country.
Prof Sayedur Rahman, Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology of the BSMMU, told a foreign English daily that out of approximately 900 patients admitted to the BSMMU ICU last year, around 400 died.
Around 80 percent of those deaths were attributed to bacterial or fungal infections that were resistant to antibiotics, said the physician.
