Senior Reporter
annalisa.paul
@guardian.co.tt
Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh has appealed to pharmacists and pharmacy owners to take their oaths seriously and uphold the laws of T&T.
Making the call when he appeared on CNC3’s The Morning Brew yesterday, he credited the majority of pharmacists for doing the right thing.
Indicating that the Ministry of Health (MOH) had no oversight to stop the sale of unregistered pharmaceuticals in the underground market, which he declared was a global problem, the minister promised, “We are trying our best to cut off the tentacles of this global problem.”
He, however, trained his guns on the owners/operators of pharmacies.
“What we are asking for is a higher degree of ethics in the industry to protect an unsuspecting public in the global fight against unregistered pharmaceuticals,” Deyalsingh said.
Although he was unable to speak of the ongoing investigation into a raid at a Trincity warehouse on October 27, in which police seized $1.5 million worth of unregistered pharmaceuticals, he said protecting patient health was the number one priority at the ministry.
Following several reports about the sale of unregistered and expired drugs throughout the country, the T&T Police Service’s (TTPS) Multi-Agency Task Force (MATF) investigated and seized 14,227 unregistered pharmaceutical items valued at over $1.5 million which are not allowed to be sold in the country.
Operation Windsor was planned and executed in conjunction with the MOH’s Chemistry, Food and Drugs Division (CFDD) at a warehouse at Tissue Drive, Trincity Industrial Estate.
The pharmaceutical section of the warehouse was placed under immediate quarantine following the raid, owing to the lack of a Pharmaceutical Wholesale Licence and/or a licensed pharmacist at the site.
Yesterday, while Deyalsingh confirmed that the sale of generic drugs was legal, he underscored it was not the same for unregistered drugs.
“What we are after, is unregistered pharmaceuticals that we have no documentation at CFDD, to prove that we have seen their Certificate of Analysis, that they are adhering to good manufacturing processes...that we have not seen the monograph, that’s what we are after,” he said.
A monograph is a written document that reflects the quality attributes of medicines approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA).
Believing the only resolution to this situation was the continuing education of pharmacists, Deyalsingh urged pharmacists, “Do not purchase drugs for sale that you cannot get an invoice for.”
The minister said the ministry would now go the route of publishing an online registry of registered pharmaceuticals in the next couple of weeks. He said it now took less than six months to have drugs registered and gazetted locally.
But Deyalsingh claimed, “There is a move to always find fault to excuse wrong doing by a minority.”
He warned that the MOH could and would not allow the minority of pharmacies that were not doing the right thing, to endanger the lives of the public
He advised the public to form a relationship with a pharmacy and to question the pharmacist if in doubt—and also ask to see the invoice for whom they bought and were selling drugs as a last resort.