Amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, our neighbouring country Pakistan is facing an acute shortage of paracetamol. And what’s even worse is that paracetamol is being sold in the black market, even as the country is gripped under the fifth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, a Pakistani newspaper reported.
An official of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan has attributed the shortage of medicine to the rising number of dengue cases in the country, the newspaper wrote. Paracetamol is widely prescribed for Covid-19 patients and is widely-used during fever or pain.
The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan has now issued show-cause notices to at least 15 pharmaceutical companies on Tuesday for failing to manufacture paracetamol despite owning the licenses of the same. Meanwhile, the number of active Covid-19 infections in Pakistan has crossed the 1 lakh mark.
But this is not the first time such a situation has arised. In 2020, fears of global shortages of some common drugs including paracetamol rose after India limited the export of certain medicines due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The world’s biggest supplier of generic drugs, India, restricted exports of 26 ingredients and the medicines made from them.
This included one of the world’s most widely-used pain relievers, paracetamol as many drug ingredient makers in China remained shut or cut output. India’s drug makers rely on China for almost 70% of the active ingredients in their medicines.
