Reza Mahmud :
Prices of all kinds of medicines have gone up in the city drug stores to the dismay of the patients.
Those who buy medicines said that illogical rise of medicine prices has increased cost of medical treatment and enlarged their burden of daily expenditures as the essential commodity prices have also increased.
Visiting different drug stores in the capital it has been found that prices of different types of medicines are on rise without any valid reason.
“Pharmaceutical companies used to hike medicine prices frequently as per their whims. We found no reason of their price hiking. But no one is there to prevent it or to check it,” one of the managers of Suporno drug house of Shabagh told The New Nation.
Sellers and shop owners of other medicine stores said, “We obviously can sell medicines at low prices if we can purchase it at such a decreasing price. But price hiking has made us hard to sell medicine at high price.”
Proprietors, managers and salesmen of different pharmaceutical stores in different areas in the city including Shahbagh and Gandaria produced names of various medicines of which prices have been increased recently. They said that price of Napro-A plus, tablet using for treating pains, surged by Tk 315 from previous price of Tk 252 per box of three leaf tablets.
Sentix-0.5mg tablet for using in case of sleeping disorder, is now selling Tk 40 per 10 tablets leaf, instead of its previous price of Tk 35.
Lino 5mg, using for treating diabetic are selling now Tk 180 per leaf tablets instead of Tk 160 of its previous price. Abec cab 5/140, per leaf tablets, for treating blood pressure is now selling at Tk 190 instead of Tk 180, and 5/120 is selling at Tk 120 instead of its previous price Tk 100. Milam-7.5mg is selling now at Tk 120 instead of Tk 100 per leaf tablets.
Meanwhile, price of Dexprofen syrup using for preventing cold related disorders, surged by Tk 20 is now selling Tk 120 while its previous price was Tk 100.
Xinc-b tablet of enriched of minerals using for treating kids physical weaknesses hiked by Tk 35, is selling now at Tk 125 instead of Tk 90 per tin.
Besides, Napa and paracetamol tablets prices also on surge by Tk 5 and selling Tk 15 instead of Tk 10 per leaf.
Medicine traders hiked its prices as per their whims as its demand is high since the covid-19 pandemic started.
Apart from these, prices of medicines for treating Covid related complexities are on huge surge since the pandemic. When contacted, Professor Dr. M. Muzaherul Huq, former Adviser of the World Health Organisation (WHO) told The New Nation, “Government, particularly the drug administration must supervise and monitor the situation for keeping medical treatment less costly and affordable for mostly the poor people in the country.”
The public health expert also urged the traders and manufacturers to be refrain in case of increasing medicine prices.
When contacted, Major General Mohammad Yousuf, Director General of Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) told The New Nation on Sunday, “We have strengthened monitoring cell to control abnormal surge of medicine prices. We must monitor so that no any company increase medicines prices without proper approval.”
The DG of DGDA, however, said that prices of several medicines have increased reasonably as the value of US dollar has been hiked so importing medicines and its raw materials also become more costly.
