The medicine market near the Mitford Hospital has been pushed into a degraded state by a group of unscrupulous profiteering traders, who have flooded the market with fake, adulterated, substandard, smuggled, expired, and banned medicines.
A drive by a mobile court on Saturday revealed the deplorable practices, with three truckloads of medicines worth over Tk50m being seized from the market. The magistrate of the mobile court also arrested 103 people and filed 74 cases.
Among the arrestees, 83 were let go after they had given undertakings to the police in addition to fines of over Tk10.25m. Eighteen other traders were handed one year’s imprisonment each after they had been found guilty of serious offences, while two more received 10 days’ jail.
Sources said there were over 2,300 wholesale and retail medicine stores around Mitford although the number was just a couple of hundred two decades back. All of these stores secured valid licences from the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA), amid allegations that unscrupulous officials at the DGDA had provided the licences to a large number of stores for illegal fees.
Meanwhile, medicine traders on Sunday brought out processions and blocked the road near Mitford, terming Saturday’s drive on drug stores “medieval barbarity.” They vandalised the office of Bangladesh Chemist and Druggist Samity (BCDS), alleging its leaders of not standing beside the traders during the drive. The five-hour demonstration hampered patients’ access to Mitford hospital.
The agitated traders claimed that legal medicines had been seized during the drive, along with the fake and substandard ones. They also protested the ill-treatment towards the arrestees, adding that no list of seizure had been prepared following the drive. Montu Miah, who has been in the medicine business for over 30 years, said it was an insult to be put in handcuffs after selling lifesaving medicines for so long.
Deputy Secretary of BCDS Monir Hossain raised questions as to why the drive had not been carried out against those who supplied the medicine to the drug stores.
He further said the BCDS would meet with the DGDA director general to recover any legal medicine that was seized during the drive. A section was trying to instigate protests among the traders, heclaimed.
Medicine traders in the area told the Dhaka Tribune that only a small number of people were involved in the trade of illegal medicines. These traders paid monthly fees to the DGDA, the BCDS and the police to keep their businesses running, they alleged.
Claiming that the medicine trade in the area was undergoing a vacuum of leadership, the traders said the BCDS did not have an election in 20 years, with incumbent BCDS President Sadequr Rahman holding his office since 1987.
Some senior medicine traders, seeking anonymity, blamed the BCDS of patronising the makers of fake and adulterated medicines. They also slammed DGDA officials for allowing illegal drug makers to supply products to the market in exchange for monthly fees.
A senior official at the DGDA, preferring not to be named, said the Mitford medicine market, in the guise of a wholesale market, had become an “illegal fortification” of fake, substandard, banned and expired medicines. Only 100 of the 2,300 stores were wholesalers, the official said.
Officers-in-charge of Sutrapur and Kotwali police stations said the general traders were not in good terms with the BCDS leaders, who failed to play a leadership role on Saturday.
BCDS Vice-President Abdul Hai and its Dhaka Mahanagar unit President Solaiman Hossain said the drug administration had not informed them about the drive, unlike other occasions. Urging traders to go for organised demonstrations, the leaders also called for preparing a list of traders with legal documents, whose medicines were seized during the drive.They also blamed the DGDA for allowing fake and adulterated medicines in the market.
Sources at the DGDA said Saturday’s drive seized medicines made by IndoBangla, National Drug, Star Pharma, Spark and Save Pharma which are among the list of 20 banned companies prepared by the parliamentary committee on health ministry. A large amount of medicines meant to be samples for physicians were also recovered. Seized medicines also included banned sex drugs and banned medicines imported from India.
