Drug deaths: Six more die, overall toll at 70

TrendPK.com
LAHORE: At least six more people died of recent monster in the form of medicine reaction, raising the overall death toll to 70 in Punjab with government machinery fully charged against the responsible for the menace, as cases have been launched against five manufacturing companies, TrendPK reports Wednesday.

While visiting the patients at Jinnah Hospital here yesterday, Punjab Chief Minister Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif said that measures are being taken on emergency basis to bring the situation under control triggered by reaction of the medicines of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC).

He said that Medical Superintendent of Services Hospital had been made OSD due to poor performance.

The CM Sharif noted the matter was being thoroughly probed and stern action would be taken in the light of inquiry against anyone found guilty of negligence or dereliction. He was talking to media persons after inquiring about the health of the patients affected by the reaction of PIC medicines at Jinnah Hospital here on Tuesday.

The case for drug-spurred deaths has been registered against the unidentified miscreants. Meantime, a local court handed owners of three medicine-manufacturing companies to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on three-day physical remand.

However, Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations Chairman Dr. Riaz Ahmed held the PIC responsible for the deaths. TrendPK