A vigorous campaign against manufacturers and dealers of substandard and spurious drugs has been launched throughout Punjab and so far the Drug Inspectors collected 20,101 samples for laboratory analysis from pharmaceutical firms and 30,283 medical stores.
A meeting chaired by Chairman, Chief Mminister's Task Force on Spurious Drug's Dr Saeed Elahi held on Sunday to review the outcome of the campaign, which was initiated on the directive of Punjab CM, Mian Shahbaz Sharif.
The meeting was informed that 199 samples were found substandard and 49 were found to be fake while the drug inspectors registered 37 FIRs against drug mafia and arrested many of them.
The inspectors also traced 755 cases of expired medicines. 209 cases have been sent to Provincial Quality Control Board, 3,882 cases were referred to District Quality Control Boards and 2215 new cases of substandard medicines were sent to drug courts for necessary action, it was told.
Courts disposed of 1,149 cases and imposed total fine of Rs10.4 million on erring manufacturers and dealers. According to Chief Minister's vision, the crackdown against the dealers and manufacturers of substandard and spurious drugs and expired medicines would be continued without any discrimination, Dr Saeed Elahi said.