LAHORE - Pharmacists and political activists staged a demonstration outside Lahore Press Club yesterday to press for the demand of withdrawal of increase in drug prices and removal of Aslam Afgani from the post of Chief Executive Officer Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan.
Carrying placards and banners inscribed with the demands, the participants chanted slogans against the health bureaucracy in Islamabad and CEO DRAP.
Addressing the participants, PTI’s legislator Dr Nausheen Hamid said that she would bring a resolution in Punjab Assembly against frequent increases in drug prices and those involved in appointment of Aslam Afghani who was imprisoned on the order of Drug Court Peshawar. Dr Aneesa Fatima said that she would bring the matter of illegal price increase in the CEC of PTI. She said that PTI would bring resolutions in National Assembly, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and Punjab Assembly against the illegal appointment of Aslam Afghani.
Dr Noor Muhammad Mahar said that Mr Afghani was owner of Efroze Pharma and Otsuka Pharma, respoinsible for death of 292 patients at Punjab Institute of Cardiology. He said that DRAP lacked rules for registration of medicines, licensing, pricing, laboratory practices, use of central research fund. He said that DRAP could not even published Pakistan Pharmacopeia since 1973.