The High Court on Wednesday asked the government to make a guideline to effectively stop the production and sales of adulterated drugs.
The High Court bench of Justice M Imman Ali and Justice Obaidul Hasan asked the health secretary and the director general of drug administration to form a high-powered committee with experts in 15 days to frame the guideline.
In a series of directives, the court asked the drug administration director general, home secretary, Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution managing director and Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research chairman to collect samples of each drug available on the market from at least 20 places across the country and to get them tested in laboratory.
They were also ordered to submit the test report to the court in five weeks.
The health secretary was also asked to report to court in four weeks on what the National Drug Advisory Council and the Drug Control Committee did in two years.
The court also asked the health secretary and the inspector general of police to report to court on the investigation and trial in the case related to the death of 76 children in 1991 after being administered paracetamol syrup.
After hearing a public interest litigation writ petition filed by the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, the court also issued a rule asking the government to explain in four weeks why action would not be ordered to effectively stop manufacturing and sales of adulterated drugs.
It asked the respondents to report the compliance of
the directives in six weeks and post for December 13 the next hearing in the writ petition.
The High Court came up with the orders as the plaintiff on October 20 sided with the persons accused of manufacturing adulterated paracetamol syrup that caused the death of 76 children in 1991.
Standing on the dock for the hearing in the much-publicised 16-year-old case against the Adflame Pharmaceuticals, complainant Abul Khair Chowdhury, the then drug superintendent, spoke in favour of the five accused, three of them are still on the run.
A puzzled prosecution immediately sought an adjournment on the proceedings.
Mohammad Abdul Majid, the judge of the drug court, adjourned cross-examination of the complainant till January 5 following the petition by prosecutor Mahmud Hossain Jahangir.
On December 23, 1992, the drug administration sued five Adflame Pharmaceu-ticals officials on charges of producing adulterated paracetamol syrup that caused death of 76 children.
In December 1992, chemical analysis, both in government test and individual tests in the United States, proved that paracetamol syrups manufactured by the five companies, including Adflame Pharmaceuticals Ltd, contained lethal chemical diethylene glycol.
It is estimated that 2,700 children died under unexplained circumstances from kidney failure between 1980 and 1992.
The other companies charged with manufacturing such syrup are Polychem Laboratories Ltd, BCI (Bangladesh) Ltd, Rex Pharmaceutical, and the City Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works Ltd.
Rex Pharmaceutical was acquitted in 2003 while the cases against Polychem and BCI have been stayed by the High Court.
Toxic paracetamol syrup also caused death of at least 28 children between June and August 2009.
The drug administration in August 2009 filed five cases in Dhaka, Brahmanbaria, Narayanganj, Comilla and Sylhet against Rid Pharmaceuticals Limited bosses for manufacturing and marketing paracetamol syrup Temset that had caused child deaths in 2009. The cases are pending with court.
On July 22, 2009, drug administration superintendent Abdul Khayer Chowdhury sealed off Rid Pharma’s factory at Nandanpur in Brahmanbaria.
The drug authorities collected samples of Temset and laboratory tests confirmed the presence of diethylene glycol in the syrup.
The company used diethylene glycol, meant for tannery and rubber industries, instead of propylene glycol which is five times costlier. Diethylene glycol costs Tk 200 a litre and propylene glycol costs Tk 1,100.
