KARACHI: Chemists and Druggists have feared the shortage of different lifesaving vaccines in hospitals as the National Control Laboratory (NCL) has not been issuing Lot Release of biological products imported during last two weeks, Business Recorder has learnt.
Lot Release is the process of evaluating each individual lot of licensed imported product before giving approval for its release onto the market.
Pakistan Chemists and Druggists Association (PCDA) senior vice chairman Samad Budhani said importers have to go through a red tape process in NCL for issuance of lot release of their biological products.
Currently importers are unable to supply vaccine to the public and private hospitals due to non issuance of lot release certificate, Samad Budhani told.
Samad further mentioned that federal government analyst is the signing authority for lot release certificates and the tenure of current analyst is going to end on 18th of June. The federal government has not notified the successor analyst yet which may further delay the supply of life saving drugs for numerous diseases.
"This is a very serious issue and the DRAP and NHSR&C need to proactively process a notification to extend the tenure of the federal government analyst to prevent delay in issuing Lot Release for life saving biological products," Budhani said.
If the timely appointment of analyst was not made, Samad feared a serious shortage of insulin, vaccines, plasma products, cardiology products, anti-cancer drugs, products for kidney transplants and dialysis in country's health facilities.
He urged the authorities to ensure the current backlog of lot releases be cleared with immediate effect.
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