Prices of common medicines have increased by 10-15% in the last six months and those including foreign medicines for gastric, cancer, asthma-related problems, by 20%.
The Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) terms the rise “abnormal.” The findings, found in an independent study, were revealed yesterday at a press conference. The CAB members also formed a human chain in front of the National Press Club protesting the price hike.
CAB General Secretary Md Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan at the human chain said: “At some places, local drug syndicates have strictly asked the stores to charge the retail price of medicines from the consumers, and if some stores violate the rule by charging less, they are being fined and sometimes medicines are not supplied as a form of punishment.”
Speakers at the programme alleged that marketing and sales of fake and spurious medicines were taking place unabatedly. They demanded the sale of original medicines at affordable prices.
Humayun alleged that several medicine companies had been supplying products in cities, rural areas and abroad with different ingredients for each place, “but the price remains the same.”
Moreover, medical representatives of drug companies convince doctors to prescribe the patients spurious and unnecessary medicines.
“There should be a law to put an end to the doctors’ practice of prescribing unnecessary and fake medicines. The marketing of spurious and fake medicines must also be banned.”
Through the statement, the CAB has proposed some recommendations to solve the existing problems regarding medicine supplies. It has urged the authorities concerned to form a supervision cell in order to prevent spurious and fake medicines, to display medicine prices in a list at drug stores, to stop selling medicines without doctor’s prescription, and to work accordingly with the court order.
The statement also claimed that though the health ministry in 2009 was asked to take actions against 62 medicine companies by the parliamentary standing committee for ministry of health and family welfare, “there has been no development since then.”
The CAB yesterday also submitted a memorandum to Md Eyahya, assistant director of the Directorate General of Drug Administration under the health ministry.