Spurious drug procurement in Tripura
Agartala: The opposition Congress has accused Tripura government of purchasing spurious drugs from banned companies and demanded probe by central bureau of investigation (CBI).
Congress spokesperson Dr Ashok Sinha here on Friday alleged despite knowing the fact that Himachal Pradesh based Vardhaman Pharmaceuticals had been banned and licence of the company was lapsed in 2009, Tripura government procured a huge amount of medicine worth of rupees one crore from the company for past few years.
Recently, Regional Drug Research Laboratory Guwahati has found 11 drugs comprises with thee life saving injections for children, one capsule and seven tablet are spurious and when it became public Director Health Service Dr S R Debbarma instructed the hospital authorities of the state to stop using the medicines but by that time these were administered on lakh of patients, Dr Sinha alleged.
“There is case of spurious drug manufacturing against Vardhaman Pharmaceuticals in Himachal Pradesh court and its licence was not renewed since 2009 even then Tripura purchased medicines worth of Rs 100 Cr from the firm in past four years and distributed,” Dr Sinha who is also a physician alleged.
He stated that the drugs were distributed to all hospitals and Dispensaries and these spurious drugs were being used for poor patients in the state, some of the drugs were life saving drugs, even meant for serious infections in children.
“Even after getting alarm from Guwahati Regional Laboratory in later part of August, the government did not inform all the concerned doctors immediately rather they sent letters to the Chief Medical Officers on September 5 last, which took two weeks to reach due to Puja. In the process the children of the state continued to receive spurious drugs for emergency treatment and nobody knows how many of them died because these drugs,” he pointed out. (UNI)