Five WHO drug testing labs avert supply of unsafe medicines: officials

ISLAMABAD: Following the prequalification of drug testing labs at Lahore and Multan by WHO in March this year, Pakistan now has the highest number of World Health Organization (WHO) Prequalified Quality Control Laboratories for Medicines in the public sector. Together they have averted several incidents during the last two and half years where contaminated medicines were detected before their supply to health institutes, officials said on Monday.

So far these five WHO-prequalified drug testing labs are located in Multan and Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Lahore. Besides, two more labs including the Central Drug Lab (CDL) Karachi and National Control Laboratory for Biologicals (NCLB) Islamabad were in the process of becoming WHO prequalified labs, Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) officials said.

According to DRAP officials, drug testing labs were being upgraded through a USAID-funded project, called Promoting Quality of Medicines Plus (PQM+) which is being implemented by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) in Pakistan. They were testing at least 30,000 medicines annually before their supply to patients as compared to FDA labs which hardly test around 3,000 to 4,000 medicines due to a comprehensive quality assurance system. “These five WHO-prequalified Quality Control Laboratories for Medicines are the last line of defence for the patients, ensuring the provision of safe and quality medicines to people. Of the 53 WHO prequalified drug testing labs around the globe, Pakistan and India have five such labs each, which is a great achievement for Pakistan”, Waqas Ahmed, USP PQM+ Chief of Party in Pakistan told The News.

He said Pakistan started upgrading its drug testing labs, especially in Punjab after a deadly incident in 2012 when a contaminated medicine was distributed among cardiac patients in Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) Lahore, which resulted in the deaths of over 200 people while over 1,000 cardiac patients became seriously ill. “With the financial and technical support from the USAID and USP PQM+, now five drug testing labs are WHO prequalified since 2019. Two of the labs, in Multan and Lahore, became WHO-prequalified labs in March this year,” Ahmed Ahmed added. Three others include Drugs Testing Lab Rawalpindi, Drugs Testing Lab Faisalabad and Pakistan Drugs Testing and Research Center, Lahore.

According to the official, one of these five labs, DTL Faisalabad won the contract for testing UNDP’s international procurement of 57 essential medicines in 2022-23 through open international bidding. This will certainly open new doors for exports of Pakistani Pharmaceutical products and earning foreign exchange for the country, Waqas Ahmed added. Similarly, the Ministry of Public Health, Afghanistan is getting their products tested by DTL prequalified by WHO in Punjab”, he said adding that for 110 million people living in Punjab province, their prequalification means the realization of a long-held dream of having access to safe life-saving medicines.

“WHO Prequalification project in Punjab is ongoing. PQM+ programme and USAID continue to support the Punjab government in this regard. This will go on to ensure access to quality-assured essential medicines for Pakistanis, especially in high-priority public health diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, Covid-19 and other infectious and non-infectious diseases as well as for maternal, newborn, and child health”, Ahmed added.

Promoting the Quality of Medicines (PQM) programme is a cooperative agreement between the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Pharmacopeial Convention. (USPC) Since 2017, USPC has worked with USAID to support low- and middle-income countries in addressing medicines’ information and quality. “The PQM programme provides technical assistance to build the capacity of medicines regulatory authorities and quality assurance systems in countries with weak health systems. PQM is providing technical assistance to increase the supply of quality-assured essential medical products.